This report presents projections of future climate for the Southern and South-Western Flatlands (SSWF) based on our current understanding of the climate system, historical trends and model simulations of the climate response to changing greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions. This cluster has two geographically distinct sub-clusters, which are often referred to separately in this report. The southern Western Australia sub-cluster is termed SSWFW while the southern South Australian sub-cluster is SSWFE. The simulated climate response is that of the CMIP5 climate model archive, which also underpins the science of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2013).
The global climate model (GCM) simulations presented here represent the full range of emission scenarios, as defined by the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) used by the IPCC, with a particular focus on RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The former represents a pathway consistent with low-level emissions, which stabilise the carbon dioxide concentration at about 540 ppm by the end of the 21st century. The latter is representative of a high-emission scenario, for which the carbon dioxide concentration reaches about 940 ppm by the end of the 21st century.
