Chapter 3 Climate Applications and Services

Climate Services > Communicating Climate Information

While climate information is provided by the Bureau of Meteorology and other organisations through a number of ways (e.g. in regular publications, through the World Wide Web, and in response to specific requests), communicating climate information to the Australian community necessarily involves media liaison, conferences, seminars, presentations to target user groups, education kits, and, increasingly, responding to e-mail inquiries.

In recent years, the Bureau of Meteorology’s web site has become the main tool used to communicate climate information to the public. This includes maps of recent rainfall and temperature conditions, maps and tables of long-term climatological means and extremes, the Seasonal Climate Outlook, information on observed climate change within Australia, and a wide range of educational material, particularly on aspects of the El Niño- Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

The current version of the award-winning SILO web site project (www.bom.gov.au/silo) was successfully completed in May 2000. The project involved a three-year joint collaboration between the Bureau of Meteorology and the then Queensland Department of Natural Resources (now QDNR&M) and was established to provide web access to a wide variety of meteorological information, with a particular target being users in the agricultural sector. Products on the web site include a mixture of free and subscription (cost-recovery) items, including:

• real-time rainfall, temperature and other data from around Australia;
• real-time daily global solar radiation data, as derived from satellite;
• an extensive historical archive of rainfall and temperature maps, dating back to 1890 (rainfall) and 1990 (temperature);
• the Seasonal Climate Outlook, giving rainfall and temperature probabilities for the next three months; and
• ‘Meteograms’, providing 7-day weather outlooks for any location in Australia.

Tools developed by QDNR for SILO include:

• a ‘data drill’, which can provide meteorological data (real or interpolated) for anywhere in Australia; and
• the ‘patched point data set’, which provides continuous records for any meteorological station - this data set is now supporting monthly predictions of the Australian wheat harvest, among other things.

There have been continuing developments in SILO since 2001, partly with the assistance of further funding granted by CVAP to better tailor the SILO information to users' locations and to reflect users' preferences for presentation. ‘SILO2’ aims to better integrate weather and climate information. Another new feature of the site is provision of information on the reliability of seasonal climate outlooks. SILO has been growing steadily in popularity since its inception, with the number of registered subscribers increasing each year, reaching 403 by March 2003.

Two recent communication initiatives have been the El Niño Wrap-Up and the Weekly Rainfall Update. The El Niño Wrap- Up, which commenced in June 2001, is a weekly or fortnightly commentary on the state of the ENSO, including an assessment of the likelihood of El Niño conditions developing or continuing in the tropical Pacific over subsequent months. The El Niño Wrap-Up has been particularly effective in assisting the formulation and dissemination of ENSO ‘forecast policy’, and in avoiding much of the confusion which prevailed during the 1997 El Niño event. The Weekly Rainfall Update, issued since November 2002, provides commentary on rainfall over Australia over the previous week within the context of long-term rainfall deficiencies.

Media interaction plays a key role in communicating climate information to the Australian public. There are three major regular media statements made by the Bureau of Meteorology’s NCC:

• a monthly media statement on the Seasonal Climate Outlook. This is issued in both national and state-based versions;
• an Annual Climate Statement, on rainfall and temperature in Australia during the previous year, which is issued in early January each year; and
• a monthly Drought Statement on the status of rainfall deficiencies within Australia.

The Bureau of Meteorology issues these monthly drought statements usually using rainfall percentiles to indicate regions that are extremely dry. CSIRO has investigated a drought index that includes potential evaporation as well as rainfall, and in conjunction with the Bureau of Meteorology is considering whether an index similar to the simple difference between rainfall and potential evaporation can be used in drought statements and seasonal forecasts. CSIRO has produced forecasts of average change in such an index over Australia due to climate change, which indicate a decrease in annual moisture balance of between 40 and 500 mm by 2070.

In addition to the above three statements, the Bureau of Meteorology’s various Regional Offices issue regular statements (generally monthly) on recent conditions within their state (as well as ad hoc statements on specific events), as do some local meteorological offices over their areas of responsibility. As described in Chapter 2, the Northern Territory Regional Office issues a monthly Tropical Diagnostic Statement and a weekly Tropical Climate Note. These statements are distributed to a wide variety of relevant media outlets and are also available on the Bureau of Meteorology’s web site.

Bureau of Meteorology staff perform many media interviews on climate matters, some prompted by these statements and some arising independently. During the 2002-03 drought Bureau of Meteorology staff, both in the National Climate Centre and the Regional Offices typically performed 50-100 interviews each month.

The Bureau of Meteorology's climate services are regularly on display at major agricultural shows around the country and regular surveys of users, and of the public generally, are carried out to ascertain public awareness, user understanding and opinion of those services. More recently, climate service user liaison has extended to the Internet, through which e-mail queries are received. A number of Bureau of Meteorology staff also participate in various web-based discussion forums.

Bureau of Meteorology staff have, from time to time, made presentations, in person or via telecommunications hookups, to various interest groups (mostly in the rural sector). These include industry groups or individual groups of farmers. An example of the latter is the ‘Farm Management 500’ series of courses in Victoria which have involved presentations to groups of farmers at various locations within Victoria with the opportunity for discussion.

Agricultural consultative committees exist in several states. These allow representatives of various agricultural interest groups to liaise with the Bureau of Meteorology, particularly on improving ways of communicating climate information. In NSW, Queensland and South Australia, Bureau of Meteorology activities in educating and advising individuals and organizations involved in the rural sector about climate matters, are complemented and enhanced by those of state based agriculture and resource departments.

At various times during the 2002-03 drought the Bureau of Meteorology’s National Climate Centre provided briefings and guidance to the Primary Industries Ministerial Council (PIMC), a body of Commonwealth and State ministers, and the Primary Industries Standing Committee (PISC), a committee of agency heads which supports PIMC. Similarly, the Bureau of Meteorology provided input to the Natural Resource Management Standing Committee (NRMSC) and the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council (NRMMC) and was represented on subgroups of both PISC and NRMSC. Liaison also takes place between the Bureau of Meteorology and other government agencies, such as the Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS) and State and local emergency management agencies, on a range of climate issues. Liaison with BRS and state agencies has been particularly important in developing and assessing applications for Exceptional Circumstances (EC) support.

Within the broader Australian climate community, other agencies have been developing improved access to climate information for specific applications and facilitating the use of this information. BRS released the Rainfall Reliability Wizard in 2001. This is a web-based service which uses Bureau of Meteorology data and allows users to view the long-term climatological probability of exceeding any specified rainfall amount for a given period at a given location. RAINMAN (Rainfall Information for better Management) is a comprehensive climate analysis and resource package for farmers, business people, researchers and teachers. Developed by the QDPI, using data supplied by the Bureau of Meteorology, the package presents extensive information about Australia’s climate and the management of climatic risk. Users can evaluate daily, monthly and seasonal rainfall for their location.

Included are seasonal conditional probability forecasts based on the Southern Oscillation Index and, in some versions, sea surface temperatures. RAINMAN contains rainfall records from approximately 4,000 locations across Australia. The package also allows the user to enter their own measurements to study the climate on their own property. The fourth version of RAINMAN is now nearing completion and will consist of Australian and International versions, as well as RAINMAN Streamflow. The latter incorporates streamflow data, allowing better management and prediction of likely streamflow conditions.

The Managing for Climate and Weather Workshops are run by the QDPI. These utilise input from meteorologists from the Bureau of Meteorology as well as scientists from the Queensland Centre for Climate Applications as 'expert speakers and lecturers' in workshops held through the State of Queensland. Some 400 such workshops have now been held and these have gained a wide following throughout Queensland.

The 2002 drought led to unprecedented demand for the application of climate science to agriculture from farmers, their advisers and the rural and regional media. The drought home page, drought hotline, managing for drought publication and drought workshops were widely used in the NSW rural community. These different means of communication were sources of technical information on stock, crop and environmental management options during drought and for recovery after drought. An important element was the links to rural counsellors for family and personal support during stressful times. NSW Agriculture has industry funded projects applying climate risk to the grains, cotton and grazing industries. In addition to these more specific projects, NSW Agriculture continued to run climate workshops for farmers across the state - covering topics from basic weather patterns through to generic applications.

In response to the challenging decisions facing livestock producers in a variable climate, NSW Agriculture developed STOCKPLAN, a computerised decision aid to be used in groups or individually. STOCKPLAN covers feeding, agistment and selling options for sheep and cattle. The costs of pasture degradation are accounted for, as are the consequences of de-stocking or restocking on herd structure and cash flow for 11 years after the decision. In a project with the Grains Research Development Corporation, NSW Agriculture developed a calendar of cropping decisions and linked sources of weather and climate information. While this is partly a tool of trade, it provides a means of ensuring that there is two way communication between climate science and decision makers.

The Department of Agriculture in Western Australia has established a core group of expertise addressing risks associated with climate and weather called the Climate Risks and Opportunities Project (CROP) group. The activities of CROP span climate change prediction, seasonal forecasting, yield impact prediction, weather monitoring, tools for integrating climate into farm management decisions (e.g. Potential Yield Calculator (PYCAL), Climate Calculator, Flowering Calculator), information transfer and development of alliances to support these activities (e.g. ABC radio web site links to CROP web site). Products and services developed, such as the Stress Index model (STIN) and seasonal climate outlooks, are used by key national and international agricultural climate service providers. With the Internet emerging as an important way to share and co-ordinate climate information and forecast products, new supply chain flows of information have emerged and the CROP group aims to take advantage of the new developments in communication technologies.

Activities carried out in Western Australia in communicating climate information to the community include:

• Development of CROP web site (www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate) which provides access to historical weather records at a range of WA locations, links to other useful web sites and live access to local weather information targeted to the needs of researchers and farmers, via a network of weather stations managed by CROP;
• Seasonal outlooks provided regularly through the CROP website, rural media, 'Crop Updates', agri-business forums and farm group talks;
• Technical input in publications and workshops focusing on climate variability and change, including as core partner in the Indian Ocean Climate Initiative (IOCI); and
• Promotion of decision support tools, and their applications through farmer workshops, major agricultural shows and rural media.

A wide range of climate education material exists. Major sources of this include the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO Atmospheric Research and Project Atmosphere Australia (a teacher-developed, online project for school communities in Australia and around the world). Much of this material is delivered via the web, but there have also been a number of leaflets and CDs developed in recent years.