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Climate Variability

Climate Change Update: On-farm bioenergy in the Pork Industry

This is a fact sheet discussing opportunities for the Australian pork industry in relation to bioenergy production.

Exploiting Australia's Isoscape: novel methodology to underpin climate change modelling

This project, led by Dr Leo Joseph (CSIRO, Australian National Wildlife collection) is researching new ways of understanding environmental controls on the movements of birds across Australia and how climate change would affect movements of birds.

Drought perception needs a shake-up

Drought should not be perceived as a natural disaster, a conference of rural industry leaders was told in Canberra today.

Mr Ken Moore, Manager of the Social and Institutional Research Program for Land & Water Australia, told delegates at the Farming in the Dry session of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics Outlook conference that drought is realistically a long-term component of Australia’s climate.

Farmers Applying Seasonal Climate Forecasting for Profitable Sustainable Resource Use

Next Steps: SEACI 1 has been extended for six months to June 09. Scoping is underway for SEACI 2 which will continue the focus on climate change, forecasting skill and the prediction of runoff and soil moisture.

Climate Change and Variability: Assessing regional impacts of sugar cane production

This task is to determine how best the sugarcane industry in the Mackay Whitsunday region can meet the sustainability challenge of increasingly extreme events as are predicted to occur with Australia’s changing climate. In particular, will the current best practices be sufficient to keep downstream water quality impacts within the targets required for Great Barrier Reef water quality.

Farming in the dry

During the last 12 years large tracts of southern and eastern Australia have experienced a sustained dry period. The last 7 years has been more severe than the previous years. At Birchip in north western Victoria where I come from for example, our growing season rainfall has been 38% less than average over the last seven years and 28% less over the last twelve years. Interestingly our growing season rainfall over the previous twelve years from 1985 to 1996 was 20% above average.

Improving Seasonal forecasts for SWWA

More than half of the variation in gross margins in wheat cropping in south-west Western Australia (SWWA) can be explained by growing season rainfall variability (May to October). Forecasting seasonal rainfall should therefore enable the adjustment of management practices to maximise returns from ‘good’ seasons and minimise losses from ‘bad’ seasons. Growing season rainfall forecasts from Australia’s seasonal climate forecast model POAMA 1.5 (more)...

From synoptics to climate change

Model predictions of climate variability and climate change emerge as variability and trends in the average behaviour of the model weather systems. Therefore, climate models must be able to represent weather processes accurately. If a model gets the right rainfall for the wrong reasons, this casts doubt on rainfall projections. The most important weather system associated with rainfall in south-east Australia is the cut-off low. A case study shows the complexity of moisture pathways (more)...

Remote drivers of rainfall variability in Australia

This work identifies and documents a suite of large-scale drivers of rainfall variability in the Australian region. The key driver in terms of broad influence and impact on rainfall is the ElNiño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSO is related to rainfall over much of the continent at different times, particularly in the north and east with the regions of influence shifting with the seasons. The Indian Ocean Dipole (more)...

Managing climate variability research and development strategy 2008-2014

The Managing Climate Variability Research and Development Strategy focuses on investments which increase forecasting accuracy, builds the predictive capability of key attributes such as soil moisture, and develop tools which translate climate forecasts and resource attributes into decision support tools for primary producers and natural resource managers.