Climate divergence — Fact or fiction: Synoptic characterisation as a methodology for short-to-medium term climate analysis and forecasting

Establishing a connection between regional climate variability and rainfall delivery variability associated with extreme events will enable us to gain an improved understanding of the potential impacts of climate change on essential human activities - such as broadacre farming - via the rainfall delivery mechanism. Historical synoptic data shows that recent climate variability displays greater divergence from the long term trend, suggesting that short-to-medium term climate variability can be analysed using the synoptic characteristics of the delivery mechanism. Importantly, therefore, if we are to understand the variation in rainfall delivery and water availability associated with climate change and its potential impact on natural resources and reliant human activities - such as soil and agriculture - then we must consider the climate divergence from long term trends, rather than the long term trends themselves. This paper seeks to demonstrate that synoptic characterisation (in the meteorological context) is a technique that can be used to assist us establish a connection between climate divergence and deviations in rainfall patterns, and thus can be adapted as an effective short-to-medium term climate analytical and forecasting tool. The development of such a tool will facilitate better decision making and risk management, for information gained through the synoptic characterisation of regional climate can enhance the basis for studies that provide a large portion of the data required for evaluating and validating numerical regional and global scale climate models. It is the information from these studies that assist in the evaluation of the impacts due to potential future climate changes on the regional hydrologic system.