Our crop lands, grasslands and woodlands, especially on the Great Dividing Range's inland slopes, are in for tough times.
Hottest year on record: 2015
The UN World Meteorological Organisation confirms that 2015 was the hottest year on record.
Victoria and New South Wales feature prominently in a global map revealing areas of vegetation most sensitive to some of the ravages of climate change.
The map, produced by Norwegian and British scientists from 14 years of satellite observations, and published in the journal Nature, shows most parts of south-eastern Australia are least able to cope with the changes in air temperature, water availability and cloud cover wrought by global warming.
It will be critical to monitor long-term changes in vegetation response to climate.The crop lands, grasslands and woodlands of eastern Australia on the inland slopes of the Great Dividing Range will be most affected. These areas receive between 700 and 1000 millimetres of annual rainfall.
Professor Roger Jones, Victoria University
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| A global snapshot of vegetation sensitivity to climate variability. Areas in green (red) have comparatively lower (higher) vegetation sensitivity. Grey areas are barren land or ice covered. Inland water bodies are mapped in blue. Photo: Seddon et al |
"They are among our most productive areas for agriculture," said Professor Roger Jones of Victoria University's Institute of Strategic Economic Studies. "If conditions worsened, they could be among those areas most at risk."
Appropriate management responses could limit potential losses. "But it's an indication of the potential for widespread loss of productivity that could happen fairly fast," Professor Jones cautioned.
Vegetated regions of the Murray Darling Basin are wildly shifting between drought and wet cycles. "The dry-wet swings seem to be intensifying," said climate scientist Dr Alfredo Huete of the University of Technology Sydney.
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| The hills around Mansfield in North Victoria. How might they be affected by some of the ravages of climate change? Photo: Rodger Cummins |
"This will present major challenges for water and crop management in the future." By contrast, Victorian vegetation will not experience exceptional levels of eco-stress, he added.
Near Australia, areas of key tropical forest such as those in Indonesia also show high sensitivity.
Other regions of the world sensitive to variations in climate include the Arctic tundra, vast swaths of the boreal forest belt, the tropical rainforests, alpine regions worldwide, specific steppe and prairie regions and the Caatinga forest in eastern South America.
Grassland regions, in general, were found to be most sensitive to variations in water availability, while alpine regions displayed strong reactions to temperature. High-latitude tundra areas, meanwhile, were sensitive to shifts in both temperature and cloud cover.
Climate variability, as well as the related increase in extreme events in a warmer world, exerts significant influence on the structure and function of ecosystems. "But identifying ecologically sensitive areas has been difficult up to now," Dr Huete said.
Questions unanswered by the latest research include how much of the sensitivity observed in farmland areas is being managed through farming as compared to natural areas with less intensive management, Professor Jones added.
"It will be critical to monitor long-term changes in vegetation response to climate - especially to detect potential thresholds where land cover could change significantly due to external factors," he said.
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