Global warming, driven by increasing greenhouse gases, could increase the likelihood of surpassing climate thresholds for agriculture and in turn the possibility of rapid declines in productivity. The breaching of climate thresholds could have wide-ranging consequences; rapid increases in food insecurity, spikes in agricultural commodity prices from reductions in supply, as well as large-scale land use change from the relocation and / or regional intensification of agricultural production to maintain global supply. Understanding and quantifying climate induced threshold responses therefore pose a unique and important research challenge for agricultural production under climate change. Explicitly quantifying thresholds allows for values (i.e. particular climatic conditions) to be ascribed to threshold changes and thus clear guidance and recommendations about whether there are important limits, or tipping points, that researchers, managers, farmers and policy makers should be aware of and where possible avoid and / or aim at adapt too.

Potential research students interested in developing a project proposal in this field are invited to contact us to discuss their ideas.

Statistical skills and familiarity with R and / or Python programming languages are essential.

Dr Jarrod Kath

• Assoc Prof Rachel King
• Professor Scott Power

• International Centre for Applied Climate Sciences

• Climate Change Science

• Doctor of Philosophy (DPHD)