Future changes in seasonal drought in Australia

Abstract

Abstract. Climate change is expected to exacerbate the frequency and intensity of drought in many water-limited regions. However, future drought changes in Australia –the driest inhabited continent on Earth– have remained stubbornly uncertain due to a lack of model agreement in projected precipitation changes in most regions. We use an ensemble of future projections from the National Hydrological Projections to assess future drought changes in Australia. The ensemble of 32 simulations was created using the Australian Landscape Water Balance model (AWRA-L) forced by four global climate models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 that were downscaled and bias-corrected..