The University of Western Sydney has embarked upon an ambitious project - hailed as the first of its kind in the world - to simulate how the environment would cope with runaway climate change.

The decade-long study, at the University of Western Sydney's Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, will subject Australian bushland to heightened CO2 levels and altered rainfall patterns consistent with a "business as usual" global increase in greenhouse gases.

The s2 engineered array structures for the Eucalyptus Free Air CO2 Enrichment (EcuFACE) experiment, has involved the construction of six composite fibre ring structures 28 metres high and 25 metres in diameter in native bushland in Richmond, New South Wales. The structures contain an array of sensors that will deliver a concentration of CO2 to the trees within the rings.