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Wildfires pose a severe threat to the ecosystem and economy, and risk assessment is typically based on fire danger indices such as the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) used in Australia. Studying the joint tail dependence structure of high-resolution spatial FFDI data is thus crucial for estimating current and future extreme wildfire risk. However, existing likelihood-based inference approaches are computationally prohibitive in high dimensions due to the need to censor observations in the bulk of the distribution. To address this, we construct models for spatial FFDI extremes by leveraging the sparse conditional independence structure of Hüsler–Reiss-type generalized Pareto processes defined on trees. These models allow for a simplified likelihood function that is computationally efficient. Our framework involves a mixture of tree-based multivariate generalized Pareto distributions with randomly generated tree structures, resulting in a flexible model that can capture nonstationary spatial dependence structures. We fit the model to summer FFDI data from different spatial clusters in Mainland Australia and 14 decadal windows between 1999 and 2022 to study local spatiotemporal variability with respect to the magnitude and extent of extreme wildfires. Our proposed method fits the margins and spatial tail dependence structure adequately and is helpful in providing extreme wildfire risk estimates. Our results identify a significant increase in spatially aggregated fire risk across a substantially large portion of Mainland Australia, which raises serious climatic concerns. Supplementary material to this paper is provided online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factors affecting fertilizer decisions made by grain growers are changing in the context of changing climatic conditions and growing volatility in global fertilizer and grain markets. To ensure sustainable development of grain industries in light of this uncertainty, research, development, extension, and adoption activities associated with growers' fertilizer decisions need to be focused on factors to which they are most sensitive. The aim of this paper is to understand the factors that have the greatest influence on grain producer's fertilizer strategies, how these factors have changed over recent years, and what is the relative importance of agronomic, socioeconomic, and logistical factors affecting these strategies. A telephone survey of 425 grain-growing businesses in Western Australia was conducted, and survey results were analyzed statistically. We show for the first time that grain growers' fertilizer decisions are most sensitive to agronomic factors (especially the amount and distribution of rainfall). Logistic factors (such as difficulties fertilizing increasing areas in short periods of time) are growing in influence as farm size, cropping areas, and the number of fertilizer applications within seasons increase. Fertilizer decisions have become less sensitive to socioeconomic factors over the last 10 to 15 years. To ensure sustainable development of grain production, research through to adoption activities should focus on agronomic issues (such as seasonal forecasting) and logistic issues (such as improving planning, organizational, and technical capacity for developing and implementing fertilizer strategies). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a global trend away from delivering 'climate information' towards producing 'climate services' for decision-makers. The rationale for this shift is said to be the demand for timely and actionable climate knowledge, whilst the means of its delivery involves a shift from public good to more privatised forms of climate science. This paper identifies important implications of this shift to climate services by examining the role of consultants, drawing on an in-depth study of adaptation consultants in Australia. The role of consultants is instructive, not just because these private sector experts are engaged in climate services, but also because publicly funded climate science agencies are increasingly encouraged to behave as consulting firms do. Four imperatives of knowledge businesses—to be client-focussed, solutions-oriented, resource-efficient and self-replicating—are described. The paper argues that an emphasis on climate services shifts the incentives for climate science away from the public interest towards the ongoing pursuit of profit. There is a subsequent diversion of effort away from publicly accessible and transparent climate information to private knowledge for discrete clients. Climate services also emphasise knowledge for climate solutions as opposed to the politically charged identification of climate risks. The paper concludes with a warning that the trend towards climate services undermines the knowledge required for societies to adequately respond to the scale, speed and severity of climate change. At the heart of this issue is a climate services paradox: how to achieve customisation without exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early adolescence (12–13 years old) is a critical but under-researched demographic for the formation of attitudes related to climate change. We address this important area by exploring adolescent views about climate change. This paper presents opinions collected from surveys of 463 1st-year secondary school students (12–13 years old) in public secondary schools in inner-urban centres in Austria and Australia on whether climate change is (1) something about which to worry, (2) caused by humans and (3) happening now. Eligible respondents in both countries showed similar levels of agreement that climate change was probably or definitely something we should (1) worry about (84.6% Austria, 89.1% Australia), which is significantly higher than either country's adult population. Eligible respondents agreed that climate change probably or definitely is (2) caused by humans (75.6% Austria, 83.6% Australia) and that climate change is probably or definitely something that is (3) happening now (73.1% Austria, 87.5% Australia). Their response differed from the respective adult populations, but in opposite directions. Our results suggest that socio-cultural worldview may not have as much influence on this age group as it does on the respective adult populations and suggests that this age group would be receptive and ready for climate science education and engagement initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional climate models (RCMs) are used to dynamically downscale global climate models (GCMs) to provide high-resolution projections of future climate change to better inform policy and decision making at the regional scale. However, biases from GCMs are transferred to RCMs and this can limit the usefulness of the regional climate projections. This paper investigates the influence of bias correcting 4 GCMs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 3, for regional climate simulations over the CORDEX-Australasia domain using Weather Research and Forecasting. The GCM outputs are bias corrected against ERA-Interim reanalysis as a surrogate truth. Results show that over decadal time scales bias correction removes large systematic precipitation and temperature biases. However, bias correction also introduced biases where there were none, introduced biases of the opposite sign, or enhanced existing biases in other regions in some instances. The dynamical mechanisms driving the changes in the biases are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater resources in Queensland (Australia) have been depleting in many aquifers for the last 100 years and natural recharge processes are not replenishing these resources at the rate of extraction. At the same time, the need to address carbon emissions to reach global climate-change targets is becoming increasingly recognised. Plentiful deep fresh groundwater is available but is difficult, and typically uneconomical, to access due to the high costs of borehole drilling and completion. The emerging concept of 'enhanced water recovery' (EWR) hypothesises that carbon dioxide (CO2) injection into the deep aquifers will increase pressure, making groundwater more easily available at shallower depths across a broad region while simultaneously contributing to a reduction in CO2 emissions. One example where this has been proposed is in the Great Artesian Basin's Surat Basin in Queensland. The findings from a series of focus groups held with different stakeholders, including agricultural producers, rural residents, and urban residents, demonstrate how different groups perceived the risks and benefits of injecting CO2 as part of the carbon capture and storage (CCS) process to raise borehole water levels. The paper discusses the trade-offs that the different stakeholder groups found more acceptable. The significance of this research is that it will be the first to publish public responses to an emerging technology that has the potential to provide multiple benefits in terms of climate-change mitigation and groundwater use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various human heat stress indices have been developed to relate atmospheric measures of extreme heat to human health impacts, but the usefulness of different indices across various health impacts and in different populations is poorly understood. This paper determines which heat stress indices best fit hospital admissions for sets of cardiovascular, respiratory, and renal diseases across five Australian cities. We hypothesized that the best indices would be largely dependent on location. We fit parent models to these counts in the summers (November-March) between 2001 and 2013 using negative binomial regression. We then added 15 heat stress indices to these models, ranking their goodness of fit using the Akaike information criterion. Admissions for each health outcome were nearly always higher in hot or humid conditions. Contrary to our hypothesis that location would determine the best-fitting heat stress index, we found that the best indices were related largely by health outcome of interest, rather than location as hypothesized. In particular, heatwave and temperature indices had the best fit to cardiovascular admissions, humidity indices had the best fit to respiratory admissions, and combined heat-humidity indices had the best fit to renal admissions. With a few exceptions, the results were similar across all five cities. The best-fitting heat stress indices appear to be useful across several Australian cities with differing climates, but they may have varying usefulness depending on the outcome of interest. These findings suggest that future research on heat and health impacts, and in particular hospital demand modeling, could better reflect reality if it avoided “all-cause” health outcomes and used heat stress indices appropriate to specific diseases and disease groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bushfires are one of the most frequent natural hazards experienced in Australia. Fires play an important role in shaping the landscape and its ecological dynamics, but may also have devastating effects that cause human injuries and fatalities, as well as broad-scale environmental damage. While there has been considerable effort to quantify changes in the occurrence of bushfire in Australia, a comprehensive assessment of the most extreme bushfire cases, which exact the greatest economic and environmental impacts, is lacking. In this paper we reflect upon recently developed understanding of bushfire dynamics to consider (i) historical changes in the occurrence of extreme bushfires, and (ii) the potential for increasing frequency in the future under climate change projections. The science of extreme bushfires is still a developing area, thus our conclusions about emerging patterns in their occurrence should be considered tentative. Nonetheless, historical information on noteworthy bushfire events suggests an increased occurrence in recent decades. Based on our best current understanding of how extreme bushfires develop, there is strong potential for them to increase in frequency in the future. As such there is a pressing need for a greater understanding of these powerful and often destructive phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS, imos.org.au) is research infrastructure to establish an enduring observing program for Australian oceanic waters and shelf seas. The observations cover physical, biological, and chemical variables to address themes of multi-decadal ocean change, climate variability and weather extremes, boundary currents and inter-basin flows, continental shelf processes and ecosystem responses. IMOS observations are collected by national facilities based on various platform types and operated by partner institutions around the country. In this paper we describe the infrastructure and workflows developed to manage and distribute the data to the public. We highlight the existing standards and open-source software we have adopted, and the contributions we have made. To demonstrate the value of this infrastructure we provide some illustrations of use and uptake. All IMOS data are freely and openly available to the public via the Ocean Portal (). All IMOS-developed software is open-source and accessible at . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The business community has been frequently criticized for its lack of engagement with climate change, not just in terms of mitigation but increasingly also in terms of adaptation. One reason why executives may not take more decisive action on adaptation is the type of information they rely on for decision-making purposes. From this perspective, executives who engage more with scientific information sources for decision-making purposes would be likely to have a more comprehensive understanding of climate change, and would consequently be more concerned about their company's vulnerability and adaptation needs. So far, however, there is limited evidence showing that executives' lack of engagement with scientific information influences their perception that climate change is a serious issue. In this paper, we use survey data collected from 125 executives across the top 500 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX-500) to examine the links between how executives obtain information on climate change and their perceived need for adaptation action. Findings show that executives who report greater engagement with scientific information express greater concern about their company's vulnerability, which also translates into a greater perceived need for adaptation action. Making scientific information accessible to executives is therefore important for communicating climate science to a business audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper evaluates the effect of future climate change (as per the CSIRO Mk3.5 A1FI future climate projection) on cotton yield in Southern Queensland and Northern NSW, eastern Australia by using of the biophysical simulation model APSIM (Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator). The simulations of cotton production show that changes in the influential meteorological parameters caused by climate change would lead to decreased future cotton yields without the effect of CO fertilisation. By 2050 the yields would decrease by 17 %. Including the effects of CO fertilisation ameliorates the effect of decreased water availability and yields increase by 5.9 % by 2030, but then decrease by 3.6 % in 2050. Importantly, it was necessary to increase irrigation amounts by almost 50 % to maintain adequate soil moisture levels. The effect of CO was found to have an important positive impact of the yield in spite of deleterious climate change. This implies that the physiological response of plants to climate change needs to be thoroughly understood to avoid making erroneous projections of yield and potentially stifling investment or increasing risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Murray dairy region produces approximately 1.85 billion litres of milk each year, representing about 20 % of Australia's total annual milk production. An ongoing production challenge in this region is the management of the impacts of heat stress during spring and summer. An increase in the frequency and severity of extreme temperature events due to climate change may result in additional heat stress and production losses. This paper assesses the changing nature of heat stress now, and into the future, using historical data and climate change projections for the region using the temperature humidity index (THI). Projected temperature and relative humidity changes from two global climate models (GCMs), CSIRO MK3.5 and CCR-MIROC-H, have been used to calculate THI values for 2025 and 2050, and summarized as mean occurrence of, and mean length of consecutive high heat stress periods. The future climate scenarios explored show that by 2025 an additional 12-15 days (compared to 1971 to 2000 baseline data) of moderate to severe heat stress are likely across much of the study region. By 2050, larger increases in severity and occurrence of heat stress are likely (i.e. an additional 31-42 moderate to severe heat stress days compared with baseline data). This increasing trend will have a negative impact on milk production among dairy cattle in the region. The results from this study provide useful insights on the trends in THI in the region. Dairy farmers and the dairy industry could use these results to devise and prioritise adaptation options to deal with projected increases in heat stress frequency and severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercial marine fishing contributes significantly to the Australian economy, and has great importance for coastal communities. However, climate change presents significant challenges for Australia's fishing industries, now and into the future. With greater use of targeted information, the fishing industry will be better placed to minimise the negative impacts and take advantage of opportunities associated with the effects of climate change. The future of the fishing industry-specifically wild capture fisheries-will depend on its ability and capacity to apply appropriate adaptation strategies for its viability and sustainability in the long-term. Knowledge regarding expected long-term changes in species distributions, improved weather and seasonal climate forecasts and their influence on target species, and better understanding of species tolerances, can inform adaptation responses. This paper provides a review of recent advances in research addressing Australia's priorities in relation to commercial marine fisheries' responses to current and anticipated future climate change impacts, and considers barriers and adaptation options for fisheries management over the near-term planning horizon of 5-7 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]