What does future climate change mean for agriculture and human health in Australia?

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Our results indicate that increases in heat and drought related extremes throughout the 21st century will occur. All capital cities are projected to experience at least a tripling of heatwave days each year by the far future, compared to the recent past. Applying published heat-health relationships to projected changes in temperature shows that increases in mortality due to high temperatures for all cities examined would occur if projected future climates occurred today. Drought and the number of days above 30 °C are also projected to increase over the major wheat-growing regions of the country, particularly during spring when sensitivity of wheat to heat stress is greatest. Assuming no adaptation or acclimatisation, published statistical relationships between drought and national wheat yield suggest that national yields will have a less than one quarter chance of exceeding the annual historical average under far future precipitation change (excluding impacts of future temperature change and CO2 fertilization).

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