Global warming is likely to cause a progressive drought increase in some regions, but how population and natural resources will be affected is still underexplored. This study focuses on global population, forests, croplands and pastures exposure to meteorological drought hazard in the 21st century, expressed as frequency and severity of drought events. As input, we use a large ensemble of climate simulations from the Coordinat...

Forest vertebrate fauna provide critical services, such as pollination and seed dispersal, which underpin functional and resilient ecosystems. In turn, many of these fauna are dependent on the flowering phenology of the plant species of such ecosystems. The impact of changes in climate, including climate extremes, on the interaction between these fauna and flora has not been identified or elucidated, yet influences on flowerin...

We assess the simulation of Australian mean climate and rainfall variability in a new version of the CSIRO coupled ocean–atmosphere global climate model (GCM). The new version, called Mark 3.6 (Mk3.6), differs from its recent predecessors (Mk3.0 and Mk3.5) by inclusion of an interactive aerosol scheme, which treats sulfate, dust, sea salt and carbonaceous aerosol. Other changes include an updated radiation scheme and a modifie...

Drought of 3 to 7 years' duration has devastated the flora, fauna, and regional economies in rangeland grazing districts over eastern and central Australia every 15 to 25 years throughout the 20th century, in some cases degrading the land beyond recovery. Recently, these drought and degradation episodes have been associated with a global interdecadal oscillation (IDO) of period 15 to 25 years. This IDO signal brought cooler se...

Extreme drought has devastated the flora, fauna, and regional economy in rangeland grazing districts over Australia for 3–5 years duration every 20 to 30 years throughout the 20th century. We investigate the source of drought occurring in five example grazing districts in eastern and central Australia. We find year‐to‐year variability in grazing district rainfall (GDR) during the summer rainy season (November to March) compose...