Quantify the extremes and impact of frost and heat stress on the Western Australia wheat belt.

Link with the frost and heat-stress projects underway in South Australia and Victoria to improve understanding of frost and heat stress across southern Australia.

Using multi-week forecasts identified under the Improving multi-week predictions project, make new forecasting products available on the Bureau of Meteorology’s Water and The Land website.

The products will be tested by farmers participating in Managing Climate Variability’s Climate Champion program.

Improve understanding of the links between climate drivers and synoptic features.

Describe the climate drivers for New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Tasmania and provide examples of key synoptic features from the Bureau of Meteorology’s record of key weather events.

Improve POAMA’s weather predictions 2–4 weeks ahead to make them more useful to agriculture and water-management industries.

Improve predictions of conditions in the Indian Ocean and, ultimately, predictions of regional climate for western, southern and eastern Australia.

Improve Australia’s dynamical forecasting by investigating the connection between several weather systems, including the Southern Oscillation Index, Indian Ocean Dipole, Madden-Julian Oscillation, subtropical ridge and Southern Annular Mode.

Improve understanding of the variability and changing nature of frost risk at both seasonal and decadal scales for the southern regions of Australia, and implications for the wine and grain industries.

Investigate the meteorology and climatology of spring heat events on the southern grains wheat belt.

Develop a risk-management package for growers.

Using the latest atmospheric reconstructions of the last century of worldwide weather, find ways to help mange climate risk of extreme weather events in Australian agriculture, including adaptation, insurance, seasonal forecasting and future strategic projections for heatwaves, hail and other exceptional circumstances.

Understand the critical temperature thresholds for specific horticultural crops and production regions in Australia, identify commodities and/or regions that will be significantly impacted by increasing temperatures, assess the impacts and resilience of production systems and/or regions, and identify adaptation strategies to address these impacts.