Person

Benoy, Malcolm (Mac) (1946 - )

Born
1946
Occupation
Citizen scientist and Meteorologist

Summary

Mac Benoy worked for many years at the South Australian Attorney General's Department, but has received wide acclaim for the work he has done on the state's meteorological history. Over the past two decades, Benoy has volunteered with the Bureau of Meteorology in South Australia. He established a citizen science team to record and preserve hand-written meteorological records from the 19th century. Under Benoy's guidance, the group has imaged 110,000 pages of synoptic charts, observations and related documents. From these images, close to a million data points have been digitised, providing an invaluable research tool for modern-day climatologists. Reconstruction of historical weather patterns in the southern hemisphere has helped to better understand how the global climate is changing. For this work Benoy was named South Australian Senior Australian of the Year in 2026. Other projects in which Benoy is involved include the sesquicentenary of the Overland Telegraph Line and the Sir Charles Todd Research Centre.

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Details

Chronology

2015 -
Career position - Member, Australian Meteorological Association
2026
Award - Senior Australian of the Year for South Australia

Related Corporate Bodies

Published resources

Journals

Journal Articles

  • Ashcroft, L., Trewin, B., Benoy, M., Ray, D. and Courtney, C., 'The world's longest known parallel dataset: a comparison between daily Glaisher ands Stevenson screen temperature at Adelaide, Australia, 1877 - 1947', International journal of climatology, 42 (5) (2022), 2670-87, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7385. Details
  • Benoy, Mac, 'The birth of a familiar, everyday map', The globe: journal of The Australian and New Zealand Map Society, 67 (2011), 9-22. Details

Resources

Helen Cohn

Created: 25 August 2026

EOAS ID: biogs/P008134b.htm

This Edition: 2026 August - Bibliographies
Larneuk - Gariwerd calendar - Pre-spring: late July to August - season of nesting birds
Reference: https://www.bom.gov.au/resources/indigenous-weather-knowledge/indigenous-seasonal-calendars/gariwerd-calendar#bom-anchor-list__item-larneuk-season-of-nesting-birds

Publisher: Swinburne University of Technology.

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Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P008134b.htm

For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260