Earth’s Future | 2021
Seesaw Terrestrial Wetting and Drying Between Eastern and Western Australia
Abstract
Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth and among the areas of the most variable rainfall in the world (Dey et al., 2019; Nicholls et al., 1997). Its hydroclimatic variations play an important role in the global carbon and water cycles (Ahlström et al., 2015; Xie et al., 2016), occurrence of natural hazards (Johnson et al., 2016; Kiem et al., 2016), and agricultural productivity (Ma et al., 2015). Droughts occurring in Australia during 2000–2009 were reported to have reduced global terrestrial net primary production (Zhao & Running, 2010). Poulter et al. (2014) indicated that the global land carbon sink anomaly triggered by the 2010–2011 La Niña event was largely due to an enhanced ecosystem productivity across the Southern Hemisphere, particularly in Australia. Frequent droughts cause agricultural losses (Heberger, 2012; Van Dijk et al., 2013), contribute to bushfires (Sharples et al., 2016) and exacerbate heatwaves (Herold et al., 2016; Perkins-Kirkpatrick et al., 2016), and consequently impact the economy and society significantly (Van Dijk et al., 2013). This continent is also prone to floods, which lead to serious casualties and economic losses (Johnson et al., 2016). Hence, furthering our understanding and monitoring of wet and dry conditions in Australia is urgently needed for water, agriculture, and disaster risk management.