As this newsletter goes to press, Bureau of Meteorology rainfall records show most of NSW and substantial parts of south-west Queensland remain in drought. Beyond the immediate agricultural, hydrologic and ecologic impacts, many small rural towns are starting to run out of water.
Extreme weather conditions and a changing climate are often recognised by their immediate effects. But as research coming out of the Heatwaves and Cold Air Outbreaks program has shown over the past four months, these events are often generated by distant influences and when they occur have further impact beyond their immediate vicinity.
The past four months have seen a lot of activity around workshops, the continuing submission of research briefs (which allows us to post about the research on social media), plenty of classic traditional media activity and a new social media account.
The objective of this project is to develop and evaluate a post-processing method to correct gridded runoff forecasts. Improving the accuracy of gridded runoff forecasts helps to improve the skill of predictions of extreme events, such as the risk of flooding or drought.
The aim of this student project is to investigate the relationships between hydrological extremes (especially soil moisture drought) and wheat production in Australia. The outcome of the project may inform the development seasonal forecasts of hydrological indicators for agricultural production in Australia.
The aim of this student project is to investigate the impacts of climate change on hydrological extremes, such as high runoff events, hydrological or agricultural drought. It uses outputs of the AWRA-L hydrological model, which underpins the BoM's Australian Landscape Water Balance website.
CLEX researchers and colleagues from Australia, Germany and the US have quantified the effect of climate extremes, such as droughts or heatwaves, on the yield variability of staple crops around the world. Overall, year-to-year changes in climate factors during the growing season of maize, rice, soy and spring wheat accounted for 20%-49% of yield fluctuations, according to research published in Environmental Research Letters.