Drought is a major risk to Australia with extended periods of drought affecting our social, economic and environmental systems. The newly released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contains significant new assessments of the science and future projections of drought.
To better understand the implications of the latest climate science for Tasmania, this brief combines information from the IPCC AR6 WG1 report, with regional assessments that contributed to the UTAS Blueprint for a climate-positive Tasmania, and expertise from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEX).
The Paris Agreement requires countries to commit to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions to ensure that the global average temperature remains well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. But how likely are we to meet these targets?
Australian researchers in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes have made major contributions to the 2021 IPCC Working Group 1 report, through the authorship of the report, review and the many scientific papers cited in the report.
Irrespective of tipping points, climate change adaptation efforts will be less costly and disruptive to society – and will stand a better chance of success – if warming can be limited to 1.5°C rather than 2°C or higher.
The Royal Society has called for an international next-generation climate modelling centre (pdf), based on new cutting-edge high-performance computing and data services to support efforts toward net-zero emissions and to enable effective climate adaptation.
A landmark new international review of climate sensitivity led by ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes researcher Prof Steven Sherwood has reduced the uncertainty in Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity. Estimates of likely values now vary by less than a factor of two.
Research has established a link between Antarctic stratospheric winds and an increased risk of weather conducive to bushfires from late spring to early summer. Further research on the relationship between winds and ozone in the Antarctic stratosphere could improve seasonal forecasts for Australia.
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes has contributed to a new scientific study that reveals that extremely hot and cold temperatures, drought and heavy rainfall strongly affect the year-to-year variation in the total global yield of four important crops.
Weather and climate extremes occur on a wide range of time and space scales. Weather extremes occur on shorter timescales and are regionally or locally specific while climate extremes tend to be on longer timescales and can impact a region through to the whole globe.
