Australian agriculture: Coping with dangerous climate change

Will Steffen*, John Sims, James Walcott, Greg Laughlin

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    32 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    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.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)205-214
    Number of pages10
    JournalRegional Environmental Change
    Volume11
    Issue numberSUPPL. 1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2011

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