• Change text size
• Skip to content

• About us
• Contact us

Search

• Home
  • Atmosphere
  • Biodiversity
  • Coasts and marine
  • Heritage
  • Human settlements
  • Land
  • Living sustainably
  • Parks Australia
  • Water
  • EPBC Act

• SoE
  • About SoE reporting
  • SoE 2011
    • SoE 2011 report
    • SoE 2011 in brief
    • Supplementary material

• SoE 2006
  • SoE 2006 report
  • SoE 2006 at a glance
  • Theme commentaries
  • Integrative commentaties
  • Current or emerging issues
  • Technical reports
  • Data Reporting System

• • SoE 2001
    • Report
    • Key findings
    • Fact sheets
    • Theme reports
    • Technical papers
  • SoE 1996
    • SoE 1996 report
    • Key findings brochure
    • Technical papers
  • Themes
    • Drivers
    • Atmosphere
    • Inland water
    • Land
    • Marine environment
    • Antarctic environment
    • Biodiversity
    • Heritage
    • Built environment
    • Coasts
  • Publications

This document was commissioned for the 2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee. This and other commissioned documents support the Committee's Report but are not part of it.

Links to data

In the following text, there are hyperlinks to indicator documents in the SoE 2006 Data Reporting System. In some cases, hyperlinks are made to indicator documents that are now populated but for which data were unavailable to the committee at the time of writing the report. Links to the Data Reporting System are shown with this symbol  

Contents

• Introduction
• Australia's variable climate
• Current debate on climate variability and appropriate land use
• Understanding and forecasting the behaviour of the climate system
• Historical variability in rainfall
• Historical variability in temperature and potential evaporation
• Projected climate change
• Conclusion
• Box 1: Rangelands as a case study in adapting to climate variability and climate change
• Box 2: Case studies of current climate impacts for urban and rural Australia
• Box 3: The current drought 2001 to 2005
• References
• Acknowledgements

PDF file

• Living in a variable climate (PDF - 365 KB)

Peer reviewers

Dr David Jones, Australian Bureau of Meteorology
Dr Michael Roderick, CRC for Greenhouse Accounting
Dr Roger Stone, Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries

Citation

McKeon, G 2006, 'Living in a variable climate', article prepared for the 2006 Australia State of the Environment Committee, Department of Environment and Heritage, Canberra, <http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2006/publications/integrative/climate/index.html>

• Next