IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/wirecc/v10y2019i3ne577.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A review of past and projected changes in Australia's rainfall

Author

Listed:
  • Raktima Dey
  • Sophie C. Lewis
  • Julie M. Arblaster
  • Nerilie J. Abram

Abstract

There has been much attention given to the spatial and temporal characteristics of changes in mean and extreme rainfall over Australia during the past century. As Australia is the second driest continent on Earth, reliable projections around the trends and variability in future rainfall are crucial for policymakers and water resource management. This article comprehensively reviews the current published literature on trends in Australia's rainfall from pre‐instrumental and instrumental records, the climatic drivers of Australia's rainfall variability, attribution of the long‐term trends, extreme rainfall attribution methods with particular reference to a recent case study (2010–2012 east Australia rainfall event) and projected changes of mean and extreme rainfall over Australia during the 21st century. Notable trends in the observational record of rainfall in Australia are a decrease in mean rainfall in southwest and southeast Australia and an increase in northwest Australia since 1950. The general consensus of research into Australia's future rainfall is that mean rainfall will continue to decrease in southwest Australia in a warming world, while changes over northern and eastern Australia remain uncertain. There are still significant knowledge gaps around the causes of observed trends in rainfall both in the mean and extremes, the ability of climate models to accurately represent rainfall in the Australian region and future rainfall projections. These gaps are identified, and avenues for future research directions are proposed. This article is categorized under: Paleoclimates and Current Trends > Modern Climate Change

Suggested Citation

  • Raktima Dey & Sophie C. Lewis & Julie M. Arblaster & Nerilie J. Abram, 2019. "A review of past and projected changes in Australia's rainfall," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(3), May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:wirecc:v:10:y:2019:i:3:n:e577
    DOI: 10.1002/wcc.577
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.577
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/wcc.577?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gokhan Yildirim & Ataur Rahman, 2022. "Homogeneity and trend analysis of rainfall and droughts over Southeast Australia," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 112(2), pages 1657-1683, June.
    2. Shehani Rajapaksha & Raphael Chukwuka Nnachi & Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq & Anne W. M. Ng & Malik Muneeb Abid & Paras Sidiqui & Muhammad Farooq Rais & Erum Aamir & Luis Herrera Diaz & Saeed Kimiaei, 2022. "An Estimation of the Anthropogenic Heat Emissions in Darwin City Using Urban Microclimate Simulations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-15, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:wirecc:v:10:y:2019:i:3:n:e577. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1757-7799 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.