As our climate warms, agricultural drought in Australia is likely to become harder to predict

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-03-17 21:00

International

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International scientists say agricultural drought is likely to become harder to predict as the world heats up. The team used statistics and computer simulations to show that predictability of drought may decrease by more than 70% if the world warms to either 2°C or 3°C above preindustrial levels, with Australia one of the most affected regions, along with North America, Amazonia, Europe, and eastern and southern Asia. The researchers say the decrease in predictability is due to changes in soil and the interactions between the land and the air, and increasingly dry conditions more generally.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Climate Change

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Northwest A&F University, China

Funder: H.W. and X.S. acknowledge the funding provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant numbers 52479027, 52079111 and 51879222, National Key Research and Development Program of China under grant number 2022YFD1900501 and the Key Science and Technology Project of the Ministry of Water Resources under grant number SKS-2022018.

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