1. Atmospheric Research Characterising Climate Risks Breakout Workshop Presentation Roger N. Jones CSIRO Atmospheric Research

2. Atmospheric Research Characterising climate risks The largest risks come from climate variability and extremes rather being a direct consequence of mean climate change Scenario builders need to use a variety of methods to address this and not be limited by global climate models

3. Atmospheric Research “I don’t just want to see variability, I want to see CHANGE” The Right Reverend Barry Smit First Church of the Evangelical Adaptor

4. Atmospheric Research Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation V = I - A Vulnerability = Impacts - Adaptation

5. Atmospheric Research Current climate

6. Atmospheric Research Future climate - no adaptation

7. Atmospheric Research Future climate with adaptation

8. Atmospheric Research Linking key climatic variables to impacts Climate variable Impacted activity Performance criteria

9. Atmospheric Research Critical thresholds Macquarie River Catchment Irrigation 5 consecutive years below 50% allocation of water right Wetlands 10 consecutive years below bird breeding events

10. Atmospheric Research Threshold exceedance as a function of change in flow (irrigation)

11. Atmospheric Research Threshold exceedance as a function of change in flow (bird breeding)

12. Atmospheric Research Characterising risk Climate change risk can be characterised according to a function of vulnerability related to probability × criticality Where criticality is a known threshold, measured by how far an impact is shifted out of the coping range. This can quantify V = I - A for individual impacts.

13. Atmospheric Research Risk response surface Change in mean irrigation allocations in 2030

14. Atmospheric Research Risk response surface Change in Macquarie Marsh inflows in 2030

15. Atmospheric Research Probability distribution function for irrigation supply, dam supply and wetlands 2030

16. Atmospheric Research Summary There are a large number of tools available for characterising climate risk that are under-utilised. Uncertainty will not go away, so one strategy is to fully embrace uncertainty and develop probabilities. Thresholds are important tools for linking performance criteria for specific activities to climate. They often involve one or more aspects of climate variability but can be very robust. Climate change for individual impacts often requires combinations of single event (mean change) and frequency-based uncertainties (variability) to be addressed in characterising risk