Climate Tools Paper

Climate Tools for Northern Grassy Landscapes

K.A. Day, D.G. Ahrens. A. Peacock, K.G. Rickert and G.M. McKeon (2000). Climate Tools for Northern Grassy Landscapes. In Northern Grassy Landscapes Conference Katherine, Northern Territory 29-31 August 2000 : Conference Proceedings., 93-97. Casuarina: Cooperative Research Centre for the Sustainable Development of Tropical Savannas.

The high year-to-year and decade-to-decade variability in climate and pasture production of Australia's grazing lands is a major source of risk in terms of herd or flock management, financial performance and resource degradation. Several modelling studies have applied seasonal forecasts for pasture, animal and whole property management in northern Australia. Some key findings of these studies are outlined in this paper. While the results indicate benefits of using seasonal forecasts, they also support the generally held view that improvements to the skill and lead-time of forecasts would make forecasts a more useful aid to management. To this end, new sea-surface temperature (SST) indices are described for forecasting summer (November to March) rainfall in Queensland.

Full version of the paper: ClimateToolsPaper (PDF, 128K, last updated 01:38PM, 10 March 2010)