Despite a broad pattern of warming in minimum temperatures over the past 50 years, regions of sou... more Despite a broad pattern of warming in minimum temperatures over the past 50 years, regions of southeastern Australia have experienced increases in frost frequency in recent decades, and more broadly across southern Australia, an extension of the frost window due to an earlier onset and later cessation. Consistent across southern Australia is a later cessation of frosts, with some areas of southeastern Australia experiencing the last frost an average 4 weeks later than in the 1960s (i.e. mean date of last frost for the period 1960–1970 was 19 September versus 22 October for the period 2000–2009). We seek to model the spatial changes in frosts for a region exhibiting the strongest individual station trends, i.e. northern Victoria and southern New South Wales. We identify statistically significant trends at low-lying stations for the month of August and construct and validate a Bayesian space–time model of minimum temperatures, using rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as other well-understood causal factors including solar radiation, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO 3.4) and times series data relating to the position (STRP) and intensity (STRI) of subtropical highs and blocking high pressure systems. We assess the performance of this modelling approach against observational records as well as against additive and linear regression modelling approaches using root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) as well as false alarm and hit rate metrics. The spatiotemporal modelling approach demonstrated considerably better predictive skill than the others, with enhanced performance across all the metrics analysed. This enhanced performance was consistent across each decade and for temperature extremes below 2C.
In southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increas... more In southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increased and the period of frost occurrence has changed (i.e. broadened over the southern NSW, Victoria and part of South Australia and become later over WA and western parts of South Australia) Frost occurrence is linked to a long-term southerly shift in position and intensification of the band of high pressure typically located over central Australia in spring. Over many parts of NSW the frost season length has broadened by as much as 40 days and the mean number of consecutive frost days has increase to 5 days. Field and simulation studies of wheat have shown flowering and maturity occurring at a rate of 7 days earlier per 1oC of warming. This quicker phenology combined with changes to the underlying likelihood of frost will contribute to a significant increase in the risk of frost damage.
In Southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increas... more In Southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increased and the period of frost occurrence has changed (i.e. broadened over the southern NSW, Victoria and part of South Australia and become later over WA and western parts of South Australia). Frost occurrence is linked to a long-term southerly shift in position and intensification of the band of high pressure typically located over central Australia in spring. Over many parts of NSW the frost season length has broadened by as much as 40 days. Field and simulation studies of wheat have shown flowering and maturity occurring at a rate of seven days earlier per 1C of warming. This quicker phenology combined with changes to the underlying likelihood of frost will contribute to a significant increase in risk of frost damage. Subsequent studies have shown that this level of current risk is expected to continue over the next 20 years despite continued warming in mean temperatures.
In southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increas... more In southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increased and the period of frost occurrence has changed (i.e. broadened over the southern NSW, Victoria and part of South Australia and become later over WA and western parts of South Australia) Frost occurrence is linked to a long-term southerly shift in position and intensification of the band of high pressure typically located over central Australia in spring. Over many parts of NSW the frost season length has broadened by as much as 40 days and the mean number of consecutive frost days has increase to 5 days. Field and simulation studies of wheat have shown flowering and maturity occurring at a rate of 7 days earlier per 1oC of warming. This quicker phenology combined with changes to the underlying likelihood of frost will contribute to a significant increase in the risk of frost damage.
... Email: steven.crimp@csiro.au| 2 SARDI Climate Applications Unit, Waite Research Precinct, GPO... more ... Email: steven.crimp@csiro.au| 2 SARDI Climate Applications Unit, Waite Research Precinct, GPO Box 397 Adelaide SA 5001, Australia. ... For both the May to July (MJJ) and August to October (ASO) assessment periods, correlation values in excess of 0.91 were recorded in the ...
In order to respond to the threat and impacts of climate change, businesses need to devise and im... more In order to respond to the threat and impacts of climate change, businesses need to devise and implement strategies that assist them to mitigate the exposure to risk as well as adapt to a changing operating environment. In agriculture, it is well-recognised that food supply and value chains are vulnerable to changes in weather, climate and extreme events. Despite there being research and knowledge surrounding the risks of climate change to industry, in particular food production, very few studies have examined specifically how consumers perceive climate change adaptation in agriculture, how they may respond to adapted food products and through this how much more they may be willing to spend. This paper presents the findings of a survey of over 1,500 Australian consumers in relation to their response to three products, namely, potato chips, mango products and wine. The findings suggest consumers can be grouped into three main clusters according to their perceptions of climate change,...
Australia's agricultural industries are heavily impacted by both climate variability and chan... more Australia's agricultural industries are heavily impacted by both climate variability and change. The variable nature of Australian rainfall has had a strong role to play in the location and success of many agricultural enterprises. Developing flexible, proactive strategies for managing year-to-year climate variations within farming communities, and institutions that interface with them using advanced climate information, is arguably the most concrete step that agricultural industries can take to build resilience to long-term changes in the global climate system. In recent years dynamically-based atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) have become a mainstream tool in seasonal climate forecasting. This is as a result of the ongoing improvement in model performance and limitations of some existing statistical forecast systems to capture changing teleconnections in response to anthropogenic climate change. In this study a number of dynamically-based seasonal prediction model...
In this paper we report on agronomic modelling of continuous cropping at seven sites across Austr... more In this paper we report on agronomic modelling of continuous cropping at seven sites across Australia, examining yield variations in response to climate conditions over the last fifty years and over the last ten years, and comparing these with potential yield variations under a possible future (2030) climate. In this approach we model a number of adaptation options nominated by farmers within the regions and examine the yield implications of including these options. The APSIM crop model was used to examine the impacts of climate variability and change on current and possible future yields at different cropping regions across Australia, and to examine regionally specific adaptation options in response to a moderate future climate change scenario. Two clear trends emerged from the comparison between recent (1998-2007) and long-term (1958-2007) yields: simulated median yields from Western Australia have fallen by an average of 24.7% over the last ten years. A similar trend was modelled...
This study was undertaken to determine the scope and focus for an integrated assessment of climat... more This study was undertaken to determine the scope and focus for an integrated assessment of climate change impacts on, and adaptation options for, the Cairns Great Barrier Reef (CGBR) region. To achieve this, the authors employed both technical expertise and regional stakeholder input. This document describes the study objectives and the process used to meet these objectives, and provides an overview of the CGBR region, the views of technical experts on potential climate change impacts, stakeholder prioritisation of impacts and ...
December 2013 was the 346th consecutive month where global land and ocean average surface tempera... more December 2013 was the 346th consecutive month where global land and ocean average surface temperature exceeded the 20th century monthly average, with February 1985 the last time mean temperature fell below this value. Even given these and other extraordinary statistics, public acceptance of human induced climate change and confidence in the supporting science has declined since 2007. The degree of uncertainty as to whether observed climate changes are due to human activity or are part of natural systems fluctuations remains a major stumbling block to effective adaptation action and risk management. Previous approaches to attribute change include qualitative expert-assessment approaches such as used in IPCC reports and use of ‘fingerprinting’ methods based on global climate models. Here we develop an alternative approach which provides a rigorous probabilistic statistical assessment of the link between observed climate changes and human activities in a way that can inform formal clim...
As the driest inhabited continent with a highly variable climate, Australia has had a long and ev... more As the driest inhabited continent with a highly variable climate, Australia has had a long and evolving history of drought management in agriculture. This paper analyses the changing roles of science in the management of climate risk and uncertainty and how this may continue into the future. Initially science had a role in documenting the underlying nature of Australia׳s climate, and later broadening the understanding around the drivers of variability so as to provide useful climate forecasts and developing metrics to measure and compare the severity of extreme climatic events. Over time this has shifted to providing effective integrating approaches to enhance social cohesion, rural economies, environmental protection, health, and food security under drought conditions. Institutional responses initially framed drought as a natural disaster, for which State and Federal funding for farmers was distributed; however, the need for farmers to proactively manage climate risk and build adap...
Despite a broad pattern of warming in minimum temperatures over the past 50 years, regions of sou... more Despite a broad pattern of warming in minimum temperatures over the past 50 years, regions of southeastern Australia have experienced increases in frost frequency in recent decades, and more broadly across southern Australia, an extension of the frost window due to an earlier onset and later cessation. Consistent across southern Australia is a later cessation of frosts, with some areas of southeastern Australia experiencing the last frost an average 4 weeks later than in the 1960s (i.e. mean date of last frost for the period 1960–1970 was 19 September versus 22 October for the period 2000–2009). We seek to model the spatial changes in frosts for a region exhibiting the strongest individual station trends, i.e. northern Victoria and southern New South Wales. We identify statistically significant trends at low-lying stations for the month of August and construct and validate a Bayesian space–time model of minimum temperatures, using rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as other well-understood causal factors including solar radiation, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO 3.4) and times series data relating to the position (STRP) and intensity (STRI) of subtropical highs and blocking high pressure systems. We assess the performance of this modelling approach against observational records as well as against additive and linear regression modelling approaches using root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) as well as false alarm and hit rate metrics. The spatiotemporal modelling approach demonstrated considerably better predictive skill than the others, with enhanced performance across all the metrics analysed. This enhanced performance was consistent across each decade and for temperature extremes below 2C.
In southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increas... more In southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increased and the period of frost occurrence has changed (i.e. broadened over the southern NSW, Victoria and part of South Australia and become later over WA and western parts of South Australia) Frost occurrence is linked to a long-term southerly shift in position and intensification of the band of high pressure typically located over central Australia in spring. Over many parts of NSW the frost season length has broadened by as much as 40 days and the mean number of consecutive frost days has increase to 5 days. Field and simulation studies of wheat have shown flowering and maturity occurring at a rate of 7 days earlier per 1oC of warming. This quicker phenology combined with changes to the underlying likelihood of frost will contribute to a significant increase in the risk of frost damage.
In Southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increas... more In Southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increased and the period of frost occurrence has changed (i.e. broadened over the southern NSW, Victoria and part of South Australia and become later over WA and western parts of South Australia). Frost occurrence is linked to a long-term southerly shift in position and intensification of the band of high pressure typically located over central Australia in spring. Over many parts of NSW the frost season length has broadened by as much as 40 days. Field and simulation studies of wheat have shown flowering and maturity occurring at a rate of seven days earlier per 1C of warming. This quicker phenology combined with changes to the underlying likelihood of frost will contribute to a significant increase in risk of frost damage. Subsequent studies have shown that this level of current risk is expected to continue over the next 20 years despite continued warming in mean temperatures.
In southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increas... more In southern regions of Australia, despite global warming, the number of spring frosts has increased and the period of frost occurrence has changed (i.e. broadened over the southern NSW, Victoria and part of South Australia and become later over WA and western parts of South Australia) Frost occurrence is linked to a long-term southerly shift in position and intensification of the band of high pressure typically located over central Australia in spring. Over many parts of NSW the frost season length has broadened by as much as 40 days and the mean number of consecutive frost days has increase to 5 days. Field and simulation studies of wheat have shown flowering and maturity occurring at a rate of 7 days earlier per 1oC of warming. This quicker phenology combined with changes to the underlying likelihood of frost will contribute to a significant increase in the risk of frost damage.
... Email: steven.crimp@csiro.au| 2 SARDI Climate Applications Unit, Waite Research Precinct, GPO... more ... Email: steven.crimp@csiro.au| 2 SARDI Climate Applications Unit, Waite Research Precinct, GPO Box 397 Adelaide SA 5001, Australia. ... For both the May to July (MJJ) and August to October (ASO) assessment periods, correlation values in excess of 0.91 were recorded in the ...
In order to respond to the threat and impacts of climate change, businesses need to devise and im... more In order to respond to the threat and impacts of climate change, businesses need to devise and implement strategies that assist them to mitigate the exposure to risk as well as adapt to a changing operating environment. In agriculture, it is well-recognised that food supply and value chains are vulnerable to changes in weather, climate and extreme events. Despite there being research and knowledge surrounding the risks of climate change to industry, in particular food production, very few studies have examined specifically how consumers perceive climate change adaptation in agriculture, how they may respond to adapted food products and through this how much more they may be willing to spend. This paper presents the findings of a survey of over 1,500 Australian consumers in relation to their response to three products, namely, potato chips, mango products and wine. The findings suggest consumers can be grouped into three main clusters according to their perceptions of climate change,...
Australia's agricultural industries are heavily impacted by both climate variability and chan... more Australia's agricultural industries are heavily impacted by both climate variability and change. The variable nature of Australian rainfall has had a strong role to play in the location and success of many agricultural enterprises. Developing flexible, proactive strategies for managing year-to-year climate variations within farming communities, and institutions that interface with them using advanced climate information, is arguably the most concrete step that agricultural industries can take to build resilience to long-term changes in the global climate system. In recent years dynamically-based atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) have become a mainstream tool in seasonal climate forecasting. This is as a result of the ongoing improvement in model performance and limitations of some existing statistical forecast systems to capture changing teleconnections in response to anthropogenic climate change. In this study a number of dynamically-based seasonal prediction model...
In this paper we report on agronomic modelling of continuous cropping at seven sites across Austr... more In this paper we report on agronomic modelling of continuous cropping at seven sites across Australia, examining yield variations in response to climate conditions over the last fifty years and over the last ten years, and comparing these with potential yield variations under a possible future (2030) climate. In this approach we model a number of adaptation options nominated by farmers within the regions and examine the yield implications of including these options. The APSIM crop model was used to examine the impacts of climate variability and change on current and possible future yields at different cropping regions across Australia, and to examine regionally specific adaptation options in response to a moderate future climate change scenario. Two clear trends emerged from the comparison between recent (1998-2007) and long-term (1958-2007) yields: simulated median yields from Western Australia have fallen by an average of 24.7% over the last ten years. A similar trend was modelled...
This study was undertaken to determine the scope and focus for an integrated assessment of climat... more This study was undertaken to determine the scope and focus for an integrated assessment of climate change impacts on, and adaptation options for, the Cairns Great Barrier Reef (CGBR) region. To achieve this, the authors employed both technical expertise and regional stakeholder input. This document describes the study objectives and the process used to meet these objectives, and provides an overview of the CGBR region, the views of technical experts on potential climate change impacts, stakeholder prioritisation of impacts and ...
December 2013 was the 346th consecutive month where global land and ocean average surface tempera... more December 2013 was the 346th consecutive month where global land and ocean average surface temperature exceeded the 20th century monthly average, with February 1985 the last time mean temperature fell below this value. Even given these and other extraordinary statistics, public acceptance of human induced climate change and confidence in the supporting science has declined since 2007. The degree of uncertainty as to whether observed climate changes are due to human activity or are part of natural systems fluctuations remains a major stumbling block to effective adaptation action and risk management. Previous approaches to attribute change include qualitative expert-assessment approaches such as used in IPCC reports and use of ‘fingerprinting’ methods based on global climate models. Here we develop an alternative approach which provides a rigorous probabilistic statistical assessment of the link between observed climate changes and human activities in a way that can inform formal clim...
As the driest inhabited continent with a highly variable climate, Australia has had a long and ev... more As the driest inhabited continent with a highly variable climate, Australia has had a long and evolving history of drought management in agriculture. This paper analyses the changing roles of science in the management of climate risk and uncertainty and how this may continue into the future. Initially science had a role in documenting the underlying nature of Australia׳s climate, and later broadening the understanding around the drivers of variability so as to provide useful climate forecasts and developing metrics to measure and compare the severity of extreme climatic events. Over time this has shifted to providing effective integrating approaches to enhance social cohesion, rural economies, environmental protection, health, and food security under drought conditions. Institutional responses initially framed drought as a natural disaster, for which State and Federal funding for farmers was distributed; however, the need for farmers to proactively manage climate risk and build adap...
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Papers by Steven Crimp
Frost occurrence is linked to a long-term southerly shift in position and intensification of the band of high pressure typically located over central Australia in spring.
Over many parts of NSW the frost season length has broadened by as much as 40 days and the mean number of consecutive frost days has increase to 5 days.
Field and simulation studies of wheat have shown flowering and maturity occurring at a rate of 7 days earlier per 1oC of warming. This quicker phenology combined with changes to the underlying likelihood of frost will contribute to a significant increase in the risk of frost damage.
Frost occurrence is linked to a long-term southerly shift in position and intensification of the band of high pressure typically located over central Australia in spring.
Over many parts of NSW the frost season length has broadened by as much as 40 days.
Field and simulation studies of wheat have shown flowering and maturity occurring at a rate of seven days earlier per 1C of warming. This quicker phenology combined with changes to the underlying likelihood of frost will contribute to a significant increase in risk of frost damage.
Subsequent studies have shown that this level of current risk is expected to continue over the next 20 years despite continued warming in mean temperatures.
Frost occurrence is linked to a long-term southerly shift in position and intensification of the band of high pressure typically located over central Australia in spring.
Over many parts of NSW the frost season length has broadened by as much as 40 days and the mean number of consecutive frost days has increase to 5 days.
Field and simulation studies of wheat have shown flowering and maturity occurring at a rate of 7 days earlier per 1oC of warming. This quicker phenology combined with changes to the underlying likelihood of frost will contribute to a significant increase in the risk of frost damage.
Frost occurrence is linked to a long-term southerly shift in position and intensification of the band of high pressure typically located over central Australia in spring.
Over many parts of NSW the frost season length has broadened by as much as 40 days.
Field and simulation studies of wheat have shown flowering and maturity occurring at a rate of seven days earlier per 1C of warming. This quicker phenology combined with changes to the underlying likelihood of frost will contribute to a significant increase in risk of frost damage.
Subsequent studies have shown that this level of current risk is expected to continue over the next 20 years despite continued warming in mean temperatures.