Can southern Australian rainfall decline be explained? A review of possible drivers

Roseanna C. McKay; Ghyslaine Boschat; Irina Rudeva; Acacia Pepler; Ariaan Purich; Andrew Dowdy; Pandora Hope; Zoe E. Gillett; Surendra Rauniyar

doi:10.1002/wcc.820

Can southern Australian rainfall decline be explained? A review of possible drivers

Roseanna C. McKay
, Ghyslaine Boschat
, Irina Rudeva
, Acacia Pepler
, Ariaan Purich
, Andrew Dowdy
, Pandora Hope
, Zoe E. Gillett
, Surendra Rauniyar

School of Earth Atmosphere and Environment

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review Article › Research › peer-review

68 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Southern Australia's rainfall is highly variable and influenced by factors across scales from synoptic weather to large-scale circulation and remote climate modes of variability. Anthropogenic climate change and natural variability modulate these factors and their interactions. However, studies often focus on changes in selected parts of the climate system with less emphasis on the system as a whole. As such, it is difficult to gain a complete understanding of how southern Australia's rainfall responds to broad-scale changes in the climate system. We step through the existing literature on long-term changes in synoptic-to-large-scale atmospheric circulation and drivers of climate variability to form a more complete story of rainfall changes across southern Australia. This process reveals that the most robust change is the observed winter decline in rainfall as it is consistent with several changing climatic factors: decreasing rainfall from weather systems, strengthening subtropical ridge, poleward shifts in the Hadley Cell and the Southern Annular Mode, and increasing frequency of positive Indian Ocean Dipole events. In other seasons, particularly summer, changes in atmospheric circulation and drivers may not agree with observed rainfall changes, highlighting gaps in our knowledge of atmospheric dynamics and climate change processes. Future work should focus on research across temporal- and spatial-scales, better understanding of jet interactions, the influence of stratospheric processes on the troposphere, and instances of contrasting trends in drivers and southern Australian rainfall changes.

Original language	English
Article number	e820
Number of pages	24
Journal	WIREs Climate Change
Volume	14
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.820
Publication status	Published - 1 Mar 2023

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 13 Climate Action

Keywords

atmospheric circulation
attribution
Australia
climate drivers
rainfall trends

Access to Document

10.1002/wcc.820Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Can southern Australian rainfall decline be explained? A review of possible drivers",

abstract = "Southern Australia's rainfall is highly variable and influenced by factors across scales from synoptic weather to large-scale circulation and remote climate modes of variability. Anthropogenic climate change and natural variability modulate these factors and their interactions. However, studies often focus on changes in selected parts of the climate system with less emphasis on the system as a whole. As such, it is difficult to gain a complete understanding of how southern Australia's rainfall responds to broad-scale changes in the climate system. We step through the existing literature on long-term changes in synoptic-to-large-scale atmospheric circulation and drivers of climate variability to form a more complete story of rainfall changes across southern Australia. This process reveals that the most robust change is the observed winter decline in rainfall as it is consistent with several changing climatic factors: decreasing rainfall from weather systems, strengthening subtropical ridge, poleward shifts in the Hadley Cell and the Southern Annular Mode, and increasing frequency of positive Indian Ocean Dipole events. In other seasons, particularly summer, changes in atmospheric circulation and drivers may not agree with observed rainfall changes, highlighting gaps in our knowledge of atmospheric dynamics and climate change processes. Future work should focus on research across temporal- and spatial-scales, better understanding of jet interactions, the influence of stratospheric processes on the troposphere, and instances of contrasting trends in drivers and southern Australian rainfall changes. ",

keywords = "atmospheric circulation, attribution, Australia, climate drivers, rainfall trends",

author = "McKay, \{Roseanna C.\} and Ghyslaine Boschat and Irina Rudeva and Acacia Pepler and Ariaan Purich and Andrew Dowdy and Pandora Hope and Gillett, \{Zoe E.\} and Surendra Rauniyar",

note = "Funding Information: ARC Special Research Initiative for Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future, Grant/Award Number: SR20010000; Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program (NESP); Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Grant/Award Number: CE17010023; Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning through the Victorian Water and Climate Initiative Funding information Funding Information: NOAA\_ERSST\_V5 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSL, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v5.html (last accessed 8 April, 2022). We are grateful to Drs. Andrew Marshall, Eun-Pa Lim, and David Jones for the constructive and insightful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. The authors thank the Bureau of Meteorology Creative Team for the creation of Figures 3 and 5, the editor and two anonymous reviewers whose comments improved the quality of this manuscript. Funding Information: Roseanna C. McKay, Ghyslaine Boschat, Irina Rudeva, Acacia Pepler and Surendra Rauniyar received funding from the Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action through the Victorian Water and Climate Initiative. Zoe E. Gillett was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE17010023), and Ariaan Purich was funded by the ARC Special Research Initiative for Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future (SR20010000). Pandora Hope, Acacia Pepler, Surendra Rauniyar, and Andrew Dowdy received funding through the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program (NESP). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Authors. WIREs Climate Change published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.",

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AU - McKay, Roseanna C.

AU - Boschat, Ghyslaine

AU - Rudeva, Irina

AU - Pepler, Acacia

AU - Purich, Ariaan

AU - Dowdy, Andrew

AU - Hope, Pandora

AU - Gillett, Zoe E.

AU - Rauniyar, Surendra

N1 - Funding Information: ARC Special Research Initiative for Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future, Grant/Award Number: SR20010000; Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program (NESP); Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Grant/Award Number: CE17010023; Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning through the Victorian Water and Climate Initiative Funding information Funding Information: NOAA_ERSST_V5 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSL, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v5.html (last accessed 8 April, 2022). We are grateful to Drs. Andrew Marshall, Eun-Pa Lim, and David Jones for the constructive and insightful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. The authors thank the Bureau of Meteorology Creative Team for the creation of Figures 3 and 5, the editor and two anonymous reviewers whose comments improved the quality of this manuscript. Funding Information: Roseanna C. McKay, Ghyslaine Boschat, Irina Rudeva, Acacia Pepler and Surendra Rauniyar received funding from the Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action through the Victorian Water and Climate Initiative. Zoe E. Gillett was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE17010023), and Ariaan Purich was funded by the ARC Special Research Initiative for Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future (SR20010000). Pandora Hope, Acacia Pepler, Surendra Rauniyar, and Andrew Dowdy received funding through the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program (NESP). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. WIREs Climate Change published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

PY - 2023/3/1

Y1 - 2023/3/1

N2 - Southern Australia's rainfall is highly variable and influenced by factors across scales from synoptic weather to large-scale circulation and remote climate modes of variability. Anthropogenic climate change and natural variability modulate these factors and their interactions. However, studies often focus on changes in selected parts of the climate system with less emphasis on the system as a whole. As such, it is difficult to gain a complete understanding of how southern Australia's rainfall responds to broad-scale changes in the climate system. We step through the existing literature on long-term changes in synoptic-to-large-scale atmospheric circulation and drivers of climate variability to form a more complete story of rainfall changes across southern Australia. This process reveals that the most robust change is the observed winter decline in rainfall as it is consistent with several changing climatic factors: decreasing rainfall from weather systems, strengthening subtropical ridge, poleward shifts in the Hadley Cell and the Southern Annular Mode, and increasing frequency of positive Indian Ocean Dipole events. In other seasons, particularly summer, changes in atmospheric circulation and drivers may not agree with observed rainfall changes, highlighting gaps in our knowledge of atmospheric dynamics and climate change processes. Future work should focus on research across temporal- and spatial-scales, better understanding of jet interactions, the influence of stratospheric processes on the troposphere, and instances of contrasting trends in drivers and southern Australian rainfall changes.

AB - Southern Australia's rainfall is highly variable and influenced by factors across scales from synoptic weather to large-scale circulation and remote climate modes of variability. Anthropogenic climate change and natural variability modulate these factors and their interactions. However, studies often focus on changes in selected parts of the climate system with less emphasis on the system as a whole. As such, it is difficult to gain a complete understanding of how southern Australia's rainfall responds to broad-scale changes in the climate system. We step through the existing literature on long-term changes in synoptic-to-large-scale atmospheric circulation and drivers of climate variability to form a more complete story of rainfall changes across southern Australia. This process reveals that the most robust change is the observed winter decline in rainfall as it is consistent with several changing climatic factors: decreasing rainfall from weather systems, strengthening subtropical ridge, poleward shifts in the Hadley Cell and the Southern Annular Mode, and increasing frequency of positive Indian Ocean Dipole events. In other seasons, particularly summer, changes in atmospheric circulation and drivers may not agree with observed rainfall changes, highlighting gaps in our knowledge of atmospheric dynamics and climate change processes. Future work should focus on research across temporal- and spatial-scales, better understanding of jet interactions, the influence of stratospheric processes on the troposphere, and instances of contrasting trends in drivers and southern Australian rainfall changes.

KW - atmospheric circulation

KW - attribution

KW - Australia

KW - climate drivers

KW - rainfall trends

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85147039515

U2 - 10.1002/wcc.820

DO - 10.1002/wcc.820

M3 - Review Article

AN - SCOPUS:85147039515

SN - 1757-7780

VL - 14

JO - WIREs Climate Change

JF - WIREs Climate Change

IS - 2

M1 - e820

ER -

Can southern Australian rainfall decline be explained? A review of possible drivers

Abstract

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

SAEF: Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future – An Evidence-Based, Informatics Approach

ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes

Cite this

Can southern Australian rainfall decline be explained? A review of possible drivers

Abstract

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Projects

SAEF: Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future – An Evidence-Based, Informatics Approach

ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes

Cite this