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Traditional calendars document seasonal cycles and the communities’ relationships to their biophysical environment and are often used by communities, particularly subsistence farmers, to synchronize their livelihood activities with the timing of ecological processes. Because the timing of these ecological processes is not always consistent from year to year, the use of traditional seasonal calendars can help communities to cope with climate variability, particularly when biophysical phenomena become less predictable in relation to the Gregorian calendar, as has been observed in relation to climate change. Although the structure and content of seasonal calendars vary across the Pacific Ocean region, for many indigenous communities, knowledge of seasonal calendars can increase their capacity to cope with climate variability and change. To increase the effectiveness of their products and enhance their relevance to and uptake by the community, several Pacific meteorological services are now using traditional seasonal calendars in their climate communication and education, including in forecasts and warnings. The use of a participatory approach resulted in strong relationships and improved dialogues. Local communities appreciated assistance in enabling their knowledge to become available to future generations, and its inclusion in meteorological service products makes these products more accessible and relevant to community members.

Traditional knowledge (TK) on weather and climate is an important aspect of community life in the Pacific. Used for generations, this knowledge is derived from observing biological and meteorological variables and contributes to building community resilience to weather extremes. Most of this knowledge is passed on orally and is in danger of being lost due to generational changes, leading communities to seek to preserve the knowledge in other ways.This paper provides guidance on the successful collection and documentation of weather and climate TK in the Pacific by considering four key components: the legal and national context, in-country partnerships, the role of community, and national and community protocols. At the regional level legislation focuses on the protection of culture/TK and intellectual property, which are linked to national policies and laws. Within the national context consideration of the governance structure is critical, including obtaining approvals to conduct the studies. The next consideration is developing partnerships to establish and implement the projects, including working with appropriate ministries, media, donor organizations, and community groups. Community involvement in all aspects of the projects is critical, built on trust between partners and ensuring outputs are aligned with community needs. Following community protocols and procedures allows for effective sharing of TK. We document common protocols that were piloted and tested across four Pacific Island nations, illustrating similarities and differences between cultural groups, including recognizing cultural sensitivities and ensuring custodian rights are protected.

In most countries, national meteorological services either generate or have access to seasonal climate forecasts. However, in a number of regions, the uptake of these forecasts by local communities can be limited, with the locals instead relying on traditional knowledge to make their climate forecasts. Both approaches to seasonal climate forecasting have benefits, and the incorporation of traditional forecast methods into contemporary forecast systems can lead to forecasts that are locally relevant and better trusted by the users. This in turn could significantly improve the communication and application of climate information, especially to remote communities. A number of different methodologies have been proposed for combining these forecasts. Through considering the benefits and limitations of each approach, practical recommendations are provided on selecting a method, in the form of a decision framework, that takes into consideration both user and provider needs. The framework comprises four main decision points: 1) consideration of the level of involvement of traditional-knowledge experts or the community that is required, 2) existing levels of traditional knowledge of climate forecasting and its level of cultural sensitivity, 3) the availability of long-term data—both traditional-knowledge and contemporary-forecast components, and 4) the level of resourcing available. No one method is suitable for everyone and every situation; however, the decision framework helps to select the most appropriate method for a given situation.

Growing interest in traditional knowledge (TK), particularly in relation to the prediction of weather or climate extremes, raises issues concerning the appropriate storage and management of the information collected. The Traditional Knowledge Database (TK Database) for the storage and use of TK associated with weather and climate prediction in the Pacific was designed with the following principles in mind: (1) preservation of the knowledge, maintaining cultural context wherever possible; (2) respect for intellectual property and cultural sensitivities around data sharing and use; (3) appropriate system design, accounting for ongoing costs of system maintenance and often intermittent Internet access; and (4) moving beyond data preservation to ensure continued use and growth of the TK. The TK Database was successfully deployed to four countries in the south Pacific and is regularly used by their national meteorological services, and partner organizations, both to preserve TK related to weather and climate and as a tool to assist in monitoring the TK indicators. As the first database of its kind, the TK Database fills a critical gap in the appropriate storage and application of TK and provides an important foundation for future developments.

Indigenous people in Pacific Island countries (PICs) often use their knowledge of the environment, acquired through generations of holistic observational practices and experimental learning, to make meteorological forecasts. Such knowledge systems are now recognized by several institutions, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as an important participatory forecast approach for decision making, particularly at a farm level. In this article, the authors show that indigenous knowledge of weather and seasonal climate forecasting is a crucial component of a potential strategy for making farming-related decisions and reducing vulnerability to environmental hazards.

Using a 40 yr demographic database of little penguins Eudyptula minor, we investi- gated anticipated impacts of climatic changes on the penguin population at Phillip Island, south- eastern Australia, and the potential economic impact on the associated tourism industry over the next century. We project a small loss of penguin breeding habitat due to sea level rise, although breeding habitat is unlikely to be limiting over this period. However, some erosion in the vicinity of tourism infrastructure will undoubtedly occur which will have economic implications. We anti cipate little direct impact of decreased rainfall and humidity. However, fire risk may increase, and extreme climate events may reduce adult and chick survival slightly. Warmer oceans are likely to improve recruitment into the breeding population but the effect on adult survival is unclear. Overall, many aspects of little penguin biology are likely to be affected by climatic change but no net negative effect on population size is projected from existing analyses. Ocean acidification has the potential to be a highly significant negative influence, but present assess- ments are speculative. Some of the predicted negative impacts can be addressed in the short- term, particularly those resulting from expected changes to the terrestrial environment. Others, particularly in the marine environment, appear to have limited options for mitigation locally. In the absence of evidence indicating population decline, economic impact may be confined to issues for tourism infrastructure due to increased sea-levels during storm events.

Numbers of four duck species present within a study area in a tidal embayment (Corner Inlet, south-eastern Australia) were obtained between 1977 and 2002. The species involved were Chestnut (Anas castanea) and Grey (A. gracilis) Teal, Pacific Black Duck (A. superciliosa) and Australian Shelduck (Tadorna tadornoides) and counts are compared with local and distant meteorological data. Chestnut and Grey Teal were most, and Australian Shelduck least, abundant. There was considerable monthly and annual variation; generally, teal and Pacific Black Duck were most numerous in summer and autumn, whereas Shelduck peaked somewhat earlier. Peak abundance corresponded to times of higher inter-annual variation and, apart from Shelduck, abundance had significant, usually weak, negative associations with rainfall though not beyond a one season lag. Pacific Black Duck numbers showed larger, more persistent and positive association with streamflows, particularly in south-eastern Australia, whereas associations for Chestnut Teal were negative and included lags of up to seven seasons. Grey Teal counts showed few significant correlations with streamflow, and Australian Shelduck numbers showed none. Abundance in some species was negatively related to the Southern Oscillation Index in the season of the count, but for Australian Shelduck there was a positive correlation for two seasons previously. Few significant relationships occurred between abundance in Corner Inlet and other Australian waterfowl abundance measures, although annual counts at Corner Inlet were positively correlated with Victorian Summer Waterfowl Counts and negatively with wetland area obtained during East Australia Counts. To an extent, results reflect current views on species' biologies, with birds moving into and out of a saline habitat determined by breeding conditions elsewhere. As found elsewhere, there were some relationships with meteorological variables, though strength and direction varied, perhaps reflecting species' plasticity in responses to rain events at local or distant scale and time.

Seabirds are subject to the influences of local climate variables during periods of land-based activities such as breeding and, for some species, moult; particularly if they undergo a catastrophic moult (complete simultaneous moult) as do penguins. We investigated potential relationships between adult penguin survival and land-based climate variables (ambient air temperature, humidity and rainfall) using 46 years of mark-recapture data of little penguins Eudyptula minor gathered at a breeding colony on Phillip Island in southeastern Australia. Our results showed that adult penguin survival had a stronger association with land-based climate variables during the moult period, when birds were unable to go to sea for up to 3 weeks, than during the breeding period, when birds could sacrifice breeding success in favour of survival. Annual adult survival probability was positively associated with humidity during moult and negatively associated with rainfall during moult. Prolonged heat during breeding and moult had a negative association with annual adult survival. Local climate projections suggest increasing days of high temperatures, fewer days of rainfall which will result in more droughts (and by implication, lower humidity) and more extreme rainfall events. All of these predicted climate changes are expected to have a negative impact on adult penguin survival.

In the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report numerous studies of processes and species associated with regional temperature change were listed for the Northern Hemisphere (107 in North America, 458 in Europe, and 14 in Asia), but only a handful of studies for the Southern Hemisphere and, sadly, none for Australia were included. This article looks at the progress that Australia has made in addressing these knowledge gaps during the last three years. The article highlights the need for a national approach to the study of the associations between climate change and natural systems and suggests ways in which this could be achieved.

Seasonal and annual movements of Australian waterbirds are generally more complex than those of their Northern Hemisphere counterparts, and long-term data are needed to understand their relationships with climatic variables. This paper explores a long-term (1973-2002) set of waterbird counts from coastal Victoria and relates them to climatic data at local and continental scales. Three species (Black Swan Cygnus atratus, White-faced Heron Egretta novaehollandiae and Grey Teal Anas gracilis) were chosen for this analysis. Black Swans have large local breeding populations near the study region; White-faced Herons have smaller local breeding populations and Grey Teal breed extensively in ephemeral inland floodplains, such as those in the Murray-Darling Basin. All showed significant relationships with streamflow, regional rainfall and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) at appropriate scales and time-lags, with streamflow explaining the most variance. Black Swans showed a strong seasonal cycle in abundance and local climate variables had the greatest influence on the counts. Numbers were positively correlated with streamflow in southern Victoria three to six seasons before each count. Broader-scale climatic patterns were more important for the other two species. Numbers of White-faced Herons were positively correlated with streamflow or rainfall over various parts of Australia seven to nine seasons before each count. Numbers of Grey Teal showed weak seasonal cycles, and were negatively correlated with rainfall in Victoria or the Murray-Darling Basin in the seasons before or during each count, and positively with streamflow in the Murray-Darling Basin 15-18 months before each count.

In contrast to the Northern Hemisphere, relatively little is known about the influence of climate, in particular climate change, on the timing of bird migration in Australia. This paper exam- ines a new dataset, comprising daily abundance records for 8 landbird species at Eyre Bird Observa- tory (EBO), Western Australia, for the period 1984 to 2003. Five of the 8 species were present at Eyre for only part of the year, while the 3 species present all year round exhibited seasonal changes in abundance. For most species, changes in migration dates were related to observed changes in the regional climate; 3 species showed no trend in migration timing, and these had no regular period of absence from EBO. Of the remaining species, the Purple-crowned Lorikeet Glossopsitta porphyro- cephala and Grey Fantail Rhipidura fuliginosa showed strong trends in arrival dates: both winter visitors arrived suddenly at EBO and earlier over time, with lorikeets arriving earlier in years of warmer night-time temperatures. Two species, Fork-tailed Swift Apus pacificus and Rainbow Bee- eater Merops ornatus, had strong trends in departure dates and were summer visitors. These species responded differently to warming night-time temperatures, perhaps reflecting their breeding char- acteristics. The Budgerigar Melopsittacus undulatus arrived and departed suddenly and showed no trend in migration timing, though wetter years corresponded to earlier arrivals. Consistent with global trends, this region warmed, particularly in minimum temperatures (0.05°C yr -1 ). There was no

BY CHER M. PAGE, NEVILLE NICHOLLS, NEIL PLUMMER, BLAIR TREWIN, MIKE MANTON, LISA ALEXANDER, LYNDA E. CHAMBERS, YOUNGEUN CHOI, DEAN A. COLLINS, ASHMITA GOSAI, PAUL DELLA-MARTA, MALCOLM R. HAYLOCK, KASIS INAPE, VICTOIRE LAURENT, LUC MAITREPIERRE, ERWIN E.P. MAKMUR, HIROSHI NAKAMIGAWA, NONGNAT OUPRASITWONG, SIMON MCGREE, JANITA PAHALAD, M.J. SALINGER, LOURDES TIBIG, TRONG D. TRAN, KALIAPAN VEDIAPAN, AND PANMAO ZHAI

An evaluation of trial seasonal forecasts during the 1997/98 El Nino, using an atmospheric GCM forced by persisted sea surface temperature and sea-ice anomalies, is presented. Generally, forecasts of seasonal anomalies of precipitation, surface air temperature, 200-hPa geopotential height, and mean sea level pressure (MSLP) are shown to have statistically significant skill in the Tropics and subtropics, but predominantly over the oceans. Surface air temperature and 200-hPa height anomalies are also skillfully forecast over land in the 30°S–30°N latitudinal band, and, in contrast to precipitation and MSLP, also show significant skill in the extratropics. The global pattern of significant skill seems not to be oversensitive to the use of a Kuo or a mass-flux convection scheme (Tiedtke), although the global root-mean-square errors are consistently larger, in the latter case. Results from multidecadal simulations of the model, when forced by observed sea surface temperature and sea-ice, show that the...

An operational system for the prediction of Australian seasonal rainfall variations using sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) patterns over the Indian and Pacific Oceans is described. The SSTA patterns are represented by rotated principal components, with individual monthly values at 1- and 3-month lead times used as predictors; for example, November and January SSTAs are used to forecast March‐May seasonal rainfall. The historical seasonal rainfall is also represented by rotated principal components of a gridded 1 8 rainfall dataset, with the principal component loadings used as weights to project the forecasts back to the original 1 8 grid points. Forecasts of seasonal rainfall in two (above/below median) or three categories (terciles) are produced using linear discriminant analysis. Hindcast skill, measured by the linear error in probability space (LEPS) skill score has been assessed using cross validation. Experiments were also performed using a double or nested crossvalidation procedure to select the best model or combination of predictors. The model chosen for operational seasonal forecasts uses the first two rotated SSTA components lagged by 1 and 3 months as predictors for every season and location, to maintain continuity of forecast probabilities between the overlapping 3-month seasons. Current values of the principal component amplitudes are calculated by projecting either the Bureau of Meteorology’s or the National Centers for Environmental Prediction’s SST analysis onto the set of SST principal components. The hindcasts and experimental real-time forecasts over the 5-yr period from January‐March 1994 to December‐February 1998/99 indicate improved skill over parts of southern Australia during the autumn period using the SST-based schemes when compared with forecasts using the Southern Oscillation index alone.

Trends in extreme daily temperature and rainfall have been analysed from 1961 to 1998 for Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. This 38-year period was chosen to optimize data availability across the region. Using high-quality data from 91 stations in 15 countries, significant increases were detected in the annual number of hot days and warm nights, with significant decreases in the annual number of cool days and cold nights. These trends in extreme temperatures showed considerable consistency across the region. Extreme rainfall trends were generally less spatially coherent than were those for extreme temperature. The number of rain days (with at least 2 mm of rain) has decreased significantly throughout Southeast Asia and the western and central South Pacific, but increased in the north of French Polynesia, in Fiji, and at some stations in Australia. The proportion of annual rainfall from extreme events has increased at a majority of stations. The frequency of extreme rainfall events has declined at most stations (but not significantly), although significant increases were detected in French Polynesia. Trends in the average intensity of the wettest rainfall events each year were generally weak and not significant. Copyright © 2001 Royal Meteorological Society.

There is substantial evidence of climate-related shifts to the timing of avian migration. Although spring arrival has generally advanced, variable species responses and geographical biases in data collection make it difficult to generalise patterns. We advance previous studies by using novel multivariate statistical techniques to explore complex relationships between phenological trends, climate indices and species traits. Using 145 datasets for 52 bird species, we assess trends in first arrival date (FAD), last departure date (LDD) and timing of peak abundance at multiple Australian locations. Strong seasonal patterns were found, i.e. spring phenological events were more likely to significantly advance, while significant advances and delays occurred in other seasons. However, across all significant trends, the magnitude of delays exceeded that of advances, particularly for FAD (+22.3 and −9.6 days/decade, respectively). Geographic variations were found, with greater advances in FAD and LDD, in south-eastern Australia than in the north and west. We identified four species clusters that differed with respect to species traits and climate drivers. Species within bird clusters responded in similar ways to local climate variables, particularly the number of raindays and rainfall. The strength of phenological trends was more strongly related to local climate variables than to broad-scale drivers (Southern Oscillation Index), highlighting the importance of precipitation as a driver of movement in Australian birds.

Seabirds are one of the most threatened groups of birds globally and, overall, their conservation status is deteriorating rapidly. Southern hemisphere countries are over-represented in the number of species of conservation concern yet long-term phenological data on seabirds in the southern hemisphere is limited. A better understanding of the implications of changes in the marine and terrestrial environments to seabird species is required in order to improve their management and conservation status. Here we conducted a meta-analysis of the phenological drivers and trends among southern hemisphere seabirds. Overall there was a general trend towards later phenological events over time (34 % of all data series, N = 47; 67 % of all significant trends), though this varied by taxa and location. The strongest trends towards later events were for seabirds breeding in Australia, the Laridae (gulls, noddies, terns) and migratory southern polar seabirds. In contrast, earlier phenologies were more often observed for the Spheniscidae (penguins) and for other seabirds breeding in the Antarctic and subantarctic. Phenological changes were most often associated with changes in oceanographic conditions, with sea-ice playing an important role for more southerly species. For some species in some locations, such as the Little Penguin Eudyptula minor in south-eastern Australia, warmer oceans projected under various climate change scenarios are expected to correspond to increased seabird productivity, manifested through earlier breeding, heavier chicks, an increased chance of double brooding, at least in the short-term.