ON FARM NATIONAL CLIMATE VARIABILTY Riding the highs and lows of climate forecasting and warmest years on record. Last year’s sudden stratospheric warming at the end of August resulted in higher temperatures on the Australian mainland during October to December, which intensified the effects of the drought and contributed to the horrific fire season. BOM Senior Principal Research Scientist Dr Harry Hendon and his colleagues Dr Eun-Pa Lim and Dr Guomin Wang are aiming to improve producers’ ability to use long-range predictions at a local level through the FWFA project. Dr Hendon said they were focusing on sudden stratospheric warmings at the time it occurred, which was serendipitous as it came after a couple Bureau of Meteorology Senior Principal Research Scientist Dr Harry Hendon.of years of studying other aspects of the climate. When a rare extreme forecasts as a tool to manage “We began looking at the role of sudden warming event took climate variability. stratospheric warmings in driving place high over Sudden stratospheric warming extreme temperatures and rainfall in Antarctica last year, The phenomenon experienced last Australia and it was fortunate we were the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) year is known as ‘sudden stratosphericlooking at this when the event occurred. was able to warn Australian red warming’. This occurs when the middle“It’s so rare and we forecast it so well meat producers of its on-ground atmosphere over the poles (15–50km that it brought a lot of attention to the impacts well ahead of time. above the surface) experiences intenseproject of climate,” Dr Hendon said. warming over the course of a few days This was thanks in part to the to a few weeks and the circumpolar Other events and phenomena are Forewarned is Forearmed (FWFA) westerly winds drastically weaken. also important for predicting extreme project, led by MLA, which aims to deliverMajor sudden stratospheric warmingsclimatic conditions. more useable long-range information “Traditionally in our field of extended to Australian primary producers. are rare in the southern hemisphere, with only two instances recorded in therange predictions, we’ve focused Here, Feedback takes a closer look past 60 years (in 2002 and 2019). Bothon things such as El Niño and, more at how producers can use long-range coincided with some of Australia’s driestrecently, the Indian Ocean Dipole. Arming producers to manage climate variability The FWFA project is developing forecasts to assist decision making ahead of extreme weather events. Producers can: plan ahead if they know move livestock from move lambing ewes or adjust stocking rates the chance of having low‑lying areas if it’s knowncalving cows to more and carrying capacity, above‑average rainfall this there is a high probability sheltered paddocks if a armed with seasonal coming spring or a heatwave of localised flooding very cold spell is forecastrainfall forecasts two weeks from now 18