Facilitator: Dr Peter Whetton (CSIRO)

Key Discussion Points:

• Limits of what's possible with this data
• Climate prediction time scales - annual v decadal v longer
• For climate change info to be useful then longer-term scenarios needed (longer term risk management)
  - crop types, engaging family succession
• Different messages for different industries
• - trends rather than annual decisions
• Long time perspective required - more common in some industries and at some times
• Development of different thresholds
• Industry bodies and regional planners could utilise this information - more useful for regional, industry, state
• Who should give advice about CC. Better to come from Government
• Summary sheets updated by CSIRO about every 3 years to communicate climate change story

Dialogue....

• How do you most utilise climate change data with our climates?
• Risk management consequences more useful possilbly on a regional level rather than individual farmer level
• Ag may not have the climate to grow historically "local" crops
• Places like Tatura exist because it has water - what will happen if water reduces?
• demand for water from cities will increase
• What about water efficiencies improving?
• The drought this year is reinforcing how important water use efficiency is
• How we are going to manage the risk will mean engaging people in solutions
• Adaptation - impacts on systems but then true impacts is the adaptation of that
• Last 5 years even though drier, productivity hasn't reduced and skills have improved in water use efficiency
• need to learn how to better forecast climate
• precision Ag and management practices developing all the time that improve efficiency
• given that we don't know how emissions will be controlled & do not know the "when & how much" so how do we plan? This info more significant for longer term planning decisions ie. Crop types, water requirements
• climate change story useful in extension area by using it as a another argument for the need to save water ie. The argument getting stronger all the time - do some scaremongering to create scenarios to create crisis before it arises!
• how good are we at predicting? Most of the uncertainty is encompassed within the bands on the charts presented
• any general trend has the factor of natural variability fluctuations that can be quite large over trends as a result of increased gas emissions
• wet decades and dry decade predictions cannot be predicted
• depends on times of years & where in Australia you are ..there can be some prediction of 2-3 seasons ahead - El N??
• Look at the state of EN in pacific and reflect back to similar past scenarios to make predictions
• Indian ocean temperatures and southern Australia rainfall could have an affect but unsure if independent to EN
• Likely to be a big impact on breeding of varieties that take into consideration new climate conditions
• Can't just look at the crop but the ag package
• Maybe able to make region wide planning decisions more so than individual farmer making decisions based on this data
• Families making decisions rather than farmers making decisions ..leaving opportunities for their generations, the longer term consequences
• Possibly paradigm shifts needed to deal with other ways of making longer term sustainable decisions
• Managing farms on regional basis rather than farm-gate basis - regional basis predictions
• How fine a resolution can you get down to with acceptable accuracy ie. Can run climate models at more finer resolutions - needs more investment - not sure if finer scale material is as useful ie. Not as accurate
• there will come a time when information will be more reliable to understand the natural world
• most EN events have a life span of 12 months - that may be followed by mildly dry event - unlikely you get 2 very dry seasons in succession
• critical thresholds - ie. What is the risk of the critical thresholds? Then build a response to that future scenario
• can speak with same confidence on seasonal changes as annual climate changes
• can't usefully provide 10 yr predictions