With Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s National Drought Summit on today, state and federal political leaders will be pressured to “drought-proof” Australia. We have seen it all before –ideas from the bottom drawer of past policies, reflecting Australia’s obsession […]
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It’s not about more money for farmers. It’s about long-term settings for a changing climate – and taking the politics out of it Central to the Australian meaning of drought is the idea of a rainfall deficiency, a […]
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Australians should brace for a dry, hot summer, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, with no relief for drought-stricken farmers. The bureau’s climate outlook for November to January, released on Friday, says there is an 80% chance temperatures […]
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Barnaby Joyce, Australia’s new special envoy for drought assistance and recovery, will have to be careful he doesn’t do more harm than good. Government funding of agriculture during a drought typically falls into three categories: subsidies for farm […]
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If you’ve ever walked in a rainforest or even a greenhouse, you’ll know that the air inside is heavy with moisture. This phenomenon is caused by trees releasing water vapour through pores in their leaves called stomata. We […]
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So far, 2018 has been very warm and exceptionally dry over large parts of mainland Australia. The Bureau of Meteorology’s climate outlook for spring, released today, shows that significant widespread relief is unlikely. The chance of a spring […]
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Diverting water earmarked for the environment to help drought-hit farmers would “absolutely” breach the federal Water Act, says David Papps, the former head of the Commonwealth Environment Water Office. Mr Papps was responding to Barnaby Joyce, the former […]
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“The sky, a great flaming oven. Grass withered; water gone; famine-stricken, blear-eyed bullocks, staggering pathetically … Skeletons and bones everywhere.” So reads a tale of the terrible drought that scorched western Queensland in June 1902. Earlier that year, Sydneysiders […]
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Australia is a continent defined by extremes, and recent decades have seen some extraordinary climate events. But droughts, floods, heatwaves, and fires have battered Australia for millennia. Are recent extreme events really worse than those in the past? […]
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Sustainable and equitable water resources systems require managers to understand the pressures and changes affecting our catchments at a range of time scales and spatial scales. Managers need to balance the competing needs of agriculture, towns, the environment […]
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The world is watching the unfolding Cape Town water crisis with horror. On “Day Zero”, now predicted to be just ten weeks away, engineers will turn off the water supply. The South African city’s four million residents will […]
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More than five years after the Murray Darling Basin Plan was implemented, it’s clear that it is not delivering on its key objectives. The Basin Plan, at its core, is about reducing the amount of water that can be extracted […]
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Drought in the Murray River doesn’t just affect the river itself – it also affects the ecosystems that live in the ocean beyond. In a study published in Marine and Freshwater Research today, we found that the very low […]
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As Texas recovers from the force of Hurricane Harvey and the Caribbean assesses its losses from Hurricane Irma, it is time for coastal communities to reflect on what makes a resilient community in the face of more frequent […]
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Winter hasn’t felt too wintry yet in much of Australia. Most of us have had more sunshine, higher temperatures, and less rainfall than is normal for the time of year. In fact, Australia just had its warmest average […]
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This June was the seventh-warmest and second-driest on record for Australia. Parts of the southwest and southeast saw record dry conditions as frontal systems passed further south than normal and high pressure exerted its influence on the continent. […]
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The Tropics are defined as the area of Earth where the Sun is directly overhead at least once a year — the zone between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. However, tropical climates occur within a larger area […]
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Australia is a land of extremes. We’ve experienced all manner of climate extremes over the past few years, from heatwaves (both on land and over the Great Barrier Reef), to droughts and flooding rains. We can already link […]
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Australian researchers are using TERN infrastructure to take part in a landmark global experiment that investigates the impact of drought on our ecosystems, and helps to predict and mitigate their continental- and regional-scale impacts. Climate change is predicted […]
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The latest round of the Australian Research Council Centres of Excellence scheme announced on 9 September 2016 carried good news for climate science. One among nine successful bids, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes will transform […]
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