Australian climate model impacts on health and agriculture

The negative impacts of climate extremes on socioeconomic sectors in Australia makes understanding their
behaviour under future climate change necessary for regional planning. Providing robust and actionable climate
information at regional scales relies on the downscaling of global climate model data and its translation into
impact-relevant information. The New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory Regional Climate Modelling
(NARCliM) project contains downscaled climate data over all of Australia at a 50 km resolution, with ensembles of
simulations for the recent past (1990–2009), near future (2020–2039) and far future (2060–2079). Here we
calculate and examine sector-relevant indices of climate extremes recommended by the Expert Team on Sectorspecific Climate Indices (ET-SCI). We demonstrate the utility of NARCliM and the ET-SCI indices in understanding how future changes in climate extremes could impact aspects of the health and agricultural sectors in
Australia.
Consistent with previous climate projections, our results indicate that increases in heat and drought related
extremes throughout the 21st century will occur. In the far future, maximum day time temperatures are projected
to increase by up to 3.5
C depending on season and location. The number of heatwaves and the duration of the
most intense heatwaves will increase significantly in the near and far future, with greater increases in the north
than south. All capital cities are projected to experience at least a tripling of heatwave days each year by the far
future, compared to the recent past. Applying published heat-health relationships to projected changes in temperature shows that increases in mortality due to high temperatures for all cities examined would occur if projected future climates occurred today.
Drought and the number of days above 30
C are also projected to increase over the major wheat-growing
regions of the country, particularly during spring when sensitivity of wheat to heat stress is greatest. Assuming
no adaptation or acclimatisation, published statistical relationships between drought and national wheat yield
suggest that national yields will have a less than one quarter chance of exceeding the annual historical average
under far future precipitation change (excluding impacts of future temperature change and CO2 fertilization). The
NARCliM data examined here, along with the ET-SCI indices calculated, provide a powerful and publicly available
dataset for regional planning against future changes in climate extremes.