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Megadroughts lasting more than two decades and more severe than any recent experience could soon hit Australia, according to new climate models.
Droughts are exceptionally severe, long-lasting and widespread and can last decades or even centuries, say researchers from the Australian National University and the ARC Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes.
The ANU-led team found that 20th century droughts in southwestern and eastern Australia were on average longer compared to those in pre-industrial times.
The new findings are in line with a warning for 2022 from the Climate Council’s Tim Flannery.
He warned global warming could affect Australia’s food supply, causing more disruption than Covid-19.
Researchers have found that future Australian megadroughts will be more severe, lasting more than 20 years or even centuries (pictured, cattle station in Broken Hill, New South Wales).
Scientists want Australians to be prepared for megadroughts that could affect food productivity (pictured, persistent drought on an Australian farm)
The research painted a picture of future droughts in Australia that were far worse than any the country has experienced in living memory.
This includes the millennium drought that lasted from 2001 to 2009 and prevented farmers from planting and harvesting in the worst affected areas, such as Tamworth in northeastern New South Wales.
The tourism industry was also hit hard during this time.
The findings do not take into account the human impact on the climate or the effects of climate change since the Industrial Revolution.
“The combination of climate change and natural megadroughts that could last 20 years means that in the future Australia could suffer droughts worse than any in recent history,” said model co-author Georgy Falster.
Megadroughts were part of natural variations in Australia’s climate, but human-induced changes were probably making the prospect of such an extreme event more likely, he said.
“We must consider and prepare for the possibility of one of these multi-decade megadroughts occurring in the near future,” Dr. Falster said.
“We could see a megadrought every 150 or 1,000 years.”
As part of the modelling, the researchers looked at the full range of droughts that Australians could experience, while investigating how climate change was altering their characteristics.
Low water levels will hit Australians during megadrought (pictured, a drought-hit farm)
They used multiple climate models to simulate past droughts and predict how they might change in the future.
ANU Professor Nerilie Abram, co-author of the research, said parts of Australia already experiencing longer droughts due to climate change – including the Murray-Darling Basin – could expect future declines in rainfall.
“It is likely that changes in drought intensity could still emerge as climate change continues to worsen,” he said.
“An example of this is the ‘Tinderbox drought’ of the 21st century, which lasted only three years but was exceptionally intense and created the conditions for the Black Summer wildfires.”
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