Recent Developments in Australian Climate History

There have been considerable advances in historical climatology in Australia over the past decade. Recent interdisciplinary research using documentary and early instrumental records has identified twenty-four new drought events and seventeen major wet periods for eastern New South Wales over the 1788–1899 period. These results provide the first opportunity to use well-verified historical Australian rainfall data in long-term global drought studies. While considerable progress has been made using material collected from the main population centres of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Queensland, there is still great potential to recover more colonial-era data from many parts of the country.