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Recent Climate Change Impacts in Australia
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Recent Climate Change Impacts in Australia

A special issue of Climate (ISSN 2225-1154).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2025 | Viewed by 29495

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Milton S. Speer

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, The University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Interests: severe weather; climate variability and change; synoptic and mesoscale meteorology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Lance Leslie

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, The University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Interests: climate variability and change; severe weather; natural hazards; computational methods in geophysics; machine learning techniques

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The main threats of climate change in Australia, as elsewhere, resulting from the increase in temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, include ecosystem collapse, more frequent severe weather, longer and more frequent droughts, and rising sea levels. The increasing temperatures at the poles are amplified by warmer oceans causing ice melt and rising sea levels, leading to lower oxygen in ocean habitats and killing coral reefs. The extreme coral bleaching event of 2016 resulted in a loss of approximately one-third of shallow-water coral cover in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The combination of warming atmosphere and oceans is altering rainfall patterns, affecting the sustainability of a wide range of ecosystems. Dry rivers and streams in southeast Australia during a recent drought resulted in mass fish deaths in southeast Australia, and further fish deaths occurred in recent river surges from flooding rains that mixed with toxic water caused by algal blooms.

In summary, global warming is already leading to dramatic changes in the Australian climate, with impacts on ecosystems and most aspects of human health, economic activity and wellbeing.

This Special Issue welcomes all studies related to climate change impacts in Australia.

Dr. Milton S. Speer
Prof. Dr. Lance Leslie
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Climate is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • climate change impacts
  • ecosystem collapse
  • climate change and variability
  • Australia

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 245 KiB  
Article
Climate Change in Rural Australia: Natural Hazard Preparedness and Recovery Needs of a Rural Community
by Caitlin E. Pike, Amy D. Lykins, Warren Bartik, Phillip J. Tully and Suzanne M. Cosh
Climate 2024, 12(5), 57; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli12050057 - 23 Apr 2024
Viewed by 1945
Abstract
Climate change has resulted in a worldwide increase in intensity and frequency of extreme weather events including bushfires. Previous research has shown that communities often do not engage in disaster preparedness, even when sufficient education and resources are provided. With the projected increase [...] Read more.
Climate change has resulted in a worldwide increase in intensity and frequency of extreme weather events including bushfires. Previous research has shown that communities often do not engage in disaster preparedness, even when sufficient education and resources are provided. With the projected increase in natural disasters, preparedness is paramount, and more research is needed to gain an understanding into what impacts community preparedness in the face of climate change. This study investigated one rural Australian community’s preparedness for the 2019–2020 bushfires. Thirteen Australian adults who resided within a small rural community in New South Wales during the 2019–2020 bushfires participated in semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Participants reported being unprepared for the 2019–2020 bushfires and that the community has started to prepare for future bushfires. However, they also described a belief in ‘climate cycles’ rather than climate change, limiting engagement in preparedness for future hazards. Participants also reported that they did not talk about the 2019–2020 bushfires, although described experiencing residual anxiety. Recommendations included support needed for rural communities to help with future preparedness efforts and mental health symptoms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Climate Change Impacts in Australia)
50 pages, 1122 KiB  
Article
Meta-Analysis and Ranking of the Most Effective Methane Reduction Strategies for Australia’s Beef and Dairy Sector
by Merideth Kelliher, Diana Bogueva and Dora Marinova
Climate 2024, 12(4), 50; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli12040050 - 8 Apr 2024
Viewed by 4212
Abstract
Although Australia remains committed to the Paris Agreement and to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, it was late in joining the 2021 Global Methane Pledge. Finding suitable methane (CH4) mitigation solutions for Australia’s livestock industry should be part of this journey. [...] Read more.
Although Australia remains committed to the Paris Agreement and to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, it was late in joining the 2021 Global Methane Pledge. Finding suitable methane (CH4) mitigation solutions for Australia’s livestock industry should be part of this journey. Based on a 2020–2023 systematic literature review and multicriteria decision approach, this study analyses the available strategies for the Australian beef and dairy sector under three scenarios: baseline, where all assessment criteria are equally weighted; climate emergency, with a significant emphasis on CH4 reduction for cattle in pasture and feedlot systems; and conservative, where priority is given to reducing costs. In total, 46 strategies from 27 academic publications were identified and classified as ‘Avoid’, ‘Shift’, or ‘Improve’ with respect to their impact on current CH4 emissions. The findings indicate that ‘Avoid’ strategies of conversion of agricultural land to wetlands, salt marshes, and tidal forest are most efficient in the climate emergency scenario, while the ‘Improve’ strategy of including CH4 production in the cattle breeding goals is the best for the conservative and baseline scenarios. A policy mix that encourages a wide range of strategies is required to ensure CH4 emission reductions and make Australia’s livestock industry more sustainable. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Climate Change Impacts in Australia)
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27 pages, 11048 KiB  
Article
Flood Hazard Assessment in Australian Tropical Cyclone-Prone Regions
by Michael Kaspi and Yuriy Kuleshov
Climate 2023, 11(11), 229; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11110229 - 13 Nov 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3113
Abstract
This study investigated tropical cyclone (TC)-induced flooding in coastal regions of Australia due to the impact of TC Debbie in 2017 utilising a differential evolution-optimised random forest to model flood susceptibility in the region of Bowen, Airlie Beach, and Mackay in North Queensland. [...] Read more.
This study investigated tropical cyclone (TC)-induced flooding in coastal regions of Australia due to the impact of TC Debbie in 2017 utilising a differential evolution-optimised random forest to model flood susceptibility in the region of Bowen, Airlie Beach, and Mackay in North Queensland. Model performance was evaluated using a receiver operating characteristic curve, which showed an area under the curve of 0.925 and an overall accuracy score of 80%. The important flood-influencing factors (FIFs) were investigated using both feature importance scores and the SHapely Additive exPlanations method (SHAP), creating a flood hazard map of the region and a map of SHAP contributions. It was found that the elevation, slope, and normalised difference vegetation index were the most important FIFs overall. However, in some regions, the distance to the river and the stream power index dominated for a similar flood hazard susceptibility outcome. Validation using SHAP to test the physical reasoning of the model confirmed the reliability of the flood hazard map. This study shows that explainable artificial intelligence allows for improved interpretation of model predictions, assisting decision-makers in better understanding machine learning-based flood hazard assessments and ultimately aiding in mitigating adverse impacts of flooding in coastal regions affected by TCs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Climate Change Impacts in Australia)
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54 pages, 4933 KiB  
Article
Identifying and Attributing Regime Shifts in Australian Fire Climates
by Roger N. Jones and James H. Ricketts
Climate 2023, 11(6), 121; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11060121 - 28 May 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3763
Abstract
This paper introduces and analyzes fire climate regimes, steady-state conditions that govern the behavior of fire weather. A simple model representing fire climate was constructed by regressing high-quality regional climate averages against the station-averaged annual Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) for Victoria, Australia. [...] Read more.
This paper introduces and analyzes fire climate regimes, steady-state conditions that govern the behavior of fire weather. A simple model representing fire climate was constructed by regressing high-quality regional climate averages against the station-averaged annual Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) for Victoria, Australia. Four FFD indices for fire years 1957–2021 were produced for 10 regions. Regions with even coverage of station-averaged total annual FFDI (ΣFFDI) from 1971–2016 exceeded Nash–Sutcliffe efficiencies of 0.84, validating its widespread application. Data were analyzed for shifts in mean, revealing regime shifts that occurred between 1996 and 2003 in the southern states and 2012–2013 in Queensland. ΣFFDI shifted up by ~25% in SE Australia to 8% in the west; by approximately one-third in the SE to 7% in the west for days above high fire danger; by approximately half in the SE to 11% in the west for days above very high, with a greater increase in Tasmania; and by approximately three-quarters in the SE to 9% in the west for days above severe FFDI. Attribution of the causes identified regime shifts in the fire season maximum temperature and a 3 p.m. relative humidity, with changing drought factor and rainfall patterns shaping the results. The 1:10 fire season between Regimes 1 and 2 saw a three to seven times increase with an average of five. For the 1:20 fire season, there was an increase of 2 to 14 times with an average of 8. Similar timing between shifts in the Australian FFDI and the global fire season length suggests that these changes may be global in extent. A trend analysis will substantially underestimate these changes in risk. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Climate Change Impacts in Australia)
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20 pages, 3253 KiB  
Article
Impact of Accelerated Climate Change on Maximum Temperature Differences between Western and Coastal Sydney
by Varsha Bubathi, Lance Leslie, Milton Speer, Joshua Hartigan, Joanna Wang and Anjali Gupta
Climate 2023, 11(4), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11040076 - 26 Mar 2023
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5772
Abstract
The aims of this study are to assess the impacts of accelerated climate change on summer maximum temperatures since the early 1990s in the Australian city of Sydney’s eastern coastal and western inland suburbs. Western Sydney currently experiences far more intense summer (December–March) [...] Read more.
The aims of this study are to assess the impacts of accelerated climate change on summer maximum temperatures since the early 1990s in the Australian city of Sydney’s eastern coastal and western inland suburbs. Western Sydney currently experiences far more intense summer (December–March) heat waves than coastal Sydney, with maximum temperatures exceeding those of coastal Sydney by up to 10 °C. Aside from increased bushfire danger, extreme temperature days pose health and socio-economic threats to western Sydney. Permutation tests of consecutive summer periods, 1962–1991 and 1992–2021, are employed to determine the differential climate change impacts on maximum summer temperatures at two locations: Sydney and Richmond, representative of eastern and western Sydney, respectively. Attribution of observed maximum summer temperature trends in Sydney and Richmond was performed using machine learning techniques applied to known Australian region oceanic and atmospheric climate drivers. It was found that there is a marked disparity in the percentage of summer days above the 95th percentile during the accelerated climate change period (1992–2021) between Richmond (+35%) and Sydney (−24%), relative to 1962–1991. The climate drivers detected as attributes were similar in both Sydney and Richmond, but, unsurprisingly, Sydney was more affected than Richmond by the oceanic climate drivers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Climate Change Impacts in Australia)
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11 pages, 2245 KiB  
Communication
Jet Stream Changes over Southeast Australia during the Early Cool Season in Response to Accelerated Global Warming
by Milton S. Speer, Lance M. Leslie and Joshua Hartigan
Climate 2022, 10(6), 84; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli10060084 - 15 Jun 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4053
Abstract
In recent decades, southeast Australia has experienced both extreme drought and record-breaking rainfall, with devastating societal impacts. Variations in the Australian polar-front jet (PFJ) and the subtropical jet (STJ) determine, for example, the location and frequency of the cool season (April–September) weather systems [...] Read more.
In recent decades, southeast Australia has experienced both extreme drought and record-breaking rainfall, with devastating societal impacts. Variations in the Australian polar-front jet (PFJ) and the subtropical jet (STJ) determine, for example, the location and frequency of the cool season (April–September) weather systems influencing rainfall events and, consequently, water availability for the southern half of Australia. Changes in jet stream wind speeds also are important for aviation fuel and safety requirements. A split jet occurs when the single jet separates into the STJ and PFJ in the early cool season (April–May). This study focusses on split jet characteristics over Australian/New Zealand longitudes in recent decades. During the accelerated global warming from the mid-1990s, higher mean wind speeds were found in the PJF across the Australian region during June–September, compared to the STJ. In contrast, significant wind speed increases occur in the early cool season (April–May) at STJ latitudes, which straddle the East Coast of Australia and the adjacent Tasman Sea. These changes are linked to major changes in the mean atmospheric circulation, and they include relative vorticity and humidity, both being vital for the development of rain-bearing weather systems that affect the region. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Climate Change Impacts in Australia)
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Review

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18 pages, 1035 KiB  
Review
Examining the Heat Health Burden in Australia: A Rapid Review
by Manoj Bhatta, Emma Field, Max Cass, Kerstin Zander, Steven Guthridge, Matt Brearley, Sonia Hines, Gavin Pereira, Darfiana Nur, Anne Chang, Gurmeet Singh, Stefan Trueck, Chi Truong, John Wakerman and Supriya Mathew
Climate 2023, 11(12), 246; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11120246 - 18 Dec 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3991
Abstract
Extreme heat has been linked to increased mortality and morbidity across the globe. Increasing temperatures due to climatic change will place immense stress on healthcare systems. This review synthesises Australian literature that has examined the effect of hot weather and heatwaves on various [...] Read more.
Extreme heat has been linked to increased mortality and morbidity across the globe. Increasing temperatures due to climatic change will place immense stress on healthcare systems. This review synthesises Australian literature that has examined the effect of hot weather and heatwaves on various health outcomes. Databases including Web of Science, PubMed and CINAHL were systematically searched for articles that quantitatively examined heat health effects for the Australian population. Relevant, peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2023 were included. Two authors screened the abstracts. One researcher conducted the full article review and data extraction, while another researcher randomly reviewed 10% of the articles to validate decisions. Our rapid review found abundant literature indicating increased mortality and morbidity risks due to extreme temperature exposures. The effect of heat on mortality was found to be mostly immediate, with peaks in the risk of death observed on the day of exposure or the next day. Most studies in this review were concentrated on cities and mainly included health outcome data from temperate and subtropical climate zones. There was a dearth of studies that focused on tropical or arid climates and at-risk populations, including children, pregnant women, Indigenous people and rural and remote residents. The review highlights the need for more context-specific studies targeting vulnerable population groups, particularly residents of rural and remote Australia, as these regions substantially vary climatically and socio-demographically from urban Australia, and the heat health impacts are likely to be even more substantial. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Climate Change Impacts in Australia)
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