Research Report
R. Suppiah, I. G. Watterson, I. Macadam, M. A.
Collier and J. Bathols
CSIRO Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship
ISBN 978-1-921359-69-9
Written December 2010
Published by RRRC August 2011
MTSRF Project 2.5ii.1
- Regional climate change projections for tropical rainforests
Executive Summary (Extract)
This is the final report from a four-year
(2006-2010) program funded by the Marine and Tropical Sciences
Research Facility (MTSRF) on regional climate change projections
for the tropical rainforest region of North Queensland. It gives a
descriptive assessment of observed climate variability during the
past century, and provides general climate change projections for
the region into the future. Recommendations for future research are
also included at the end of this summary.
Climate change due to the likely increase in atmospheric
greenhouse gas concentrations is now inevitable. Climate change
will continue to increase until, and to a lesser known degree
beyond, a stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations can be
reached. We therefore need the best possible estimates of
regional climate changes and of the sensitivity of various sectors
to such changes.
During the four-year research period, we used several approaches
for determining future changes in northeast Queensland, such as
temperature, rainfall and potential evaporation patterns for
various decades, the behaviour of the El Niño-Southern
Oscillation phenomenon (ENSO), and tropical cyclones. These factors
were investigated through simulations from global climate models
(GCMs), theoretical considerations and the application of higher
resolution regional climate models nested in a number of GCMs.
Results of higher resolution simulations are given by Thatcher and
others (2007, 2008).
Our climate change assessments are based on
coupled-ocean-atmosphere GCMs. Although these are
state-of-the-art models it is acknowledged that they are not fully
realistic. In particular, the current generation of GCMs simulates
ENSO inadequately. Furthermore, there is no consensus on the
simulation of likely changes in ENSO characteristics. A major task
in the near future is to refine coupled-ocean-atmosphere models to
provide simulations of ENSO changes in which we can have
confidence, and to use the models to investigate related effects
including possible changes in the behaviour of tropical
cyclones.
Model simulations indicate a range of plausible changes in
temperature, mean rainfall and increased rainfall intensity,
potential evaporation and possible changes in ENSO, and tropical
cyclone behaviour. The practical implications of these climate
change projections suggest possible widespread impacts across
northeast Queensland, particularly in the rainforest and Great
Barrier Reef regions. Such impacts can significantly affect coastal
zones, ecosystems, agriculture, water resources, tourism, human
health, fisheries, pests, diseases, mangroves, coral reefs and low
lying islands.
The need for developing better methods to produce improved
climate change projections under enhanced greenhouse conditions is
widely recognised. Studies of the sensitivity of ecosystems and
other sectors using climate change projections by colleagues at
James Cook University, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems and others
suggest that enhanced greenhouse conditions can have significant
impacts on ecosystems of the tropical rainforest region, as well as
economy and tourism, and human settlements. Within the next
stage of post-MTSRF Australian Government funding, we look forward
to a growing interaction and collaboration with research
communities and application agencies in the region. Even in the
absence of confident local projections of climate change,
developing the ability to assess the impacts of climate change on
particular activities and sectors is a valuable undertaking. It
will enable rapid assessments to be made of potential impacts and
adaptation strategies once uncertainties in the climate projections
are reduced.
