TY - JOUR
T1 - Australian agriculture
T2 - Coping with dangerous climate change
AU - Steffen, Will
AU - Sims, John
AU - Walcott, James
AU - Laughlin, Greg
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Australian agriculture has operated successfully in one of the world's most hostile environments for two centuries. However, climate change is posing serious challenges to its ongoing success. Determining what might constitute dangerous climate change for Australian agriculture is not an easy task, as most climate-related risks are associated with changes in the highly uncertain hydrological cycle rather than directly to more predictable changes in temperature. In addition, the adaptive capacity of Australian producers is generally high, as they have had to cope with a highly variable climate in which periodic, severe droughts are the norm. As the underlying global trends in climate interact with the continent's patterns of natural variability, producers can generally deal with gradual changes in climate but are most concerned about high rates of change in regional and local climates and with abrupt, unexpected shifts in climate patterns. Perhaps the best indicator of dangerous climate change for Australian agriculture is the persistence, or not, of the drying trends in many of the Country's most productive regions and the strength of the linkage between these trends and global climate change.
AB - Australian agriculture has operated successfully in one of the world's most hostile environments for two centuries. However, climate change is posing serious challenges to its ongoing success. Determining what might constitute dangerous climate change for Australian agriculture is not an easy task, as most climate-related risks are associated with changes in the highly uncertain hydrological cycle rather than directly to more predictable changes in temperature. In addition, the adaptive capacity of Australian producers is generally high, as they have had to cope with a highly variable climate in which periodic, severe droughts are the norm. As the underlying global trends in climate interact with the continent's patterns of natural variability, producers can generally deal with gradual changes in climate but are most concerned about high rates of change in regional and local climates and with abrupt, unexpected shifts in climate patterns. Perhaps the best indicator of dangerous climate change for Australian agriculture is the persistence, or not, of the drying trends in many of the Country's most productive regions and the strength of the linkage between these trends and global climate change.
KW - Adaptive capacity
KW - Agricultural impacts
KW - Climate risks to agriculture
KW - Effects of drought
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79952105255&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10113-010-0178-5
DO - 10.1007/s10113-010-0178-5
M3 - Article
SN - 1436-3798
VL - 11
SP - 205
EP - 214
JO - Regional Environmental Change
JF - Regional Environmental Change
IS - SUPPL. 1
ER -