Macro of tomato plant leaves with frost

Temperature

This dependency category covers direct and indirect reliance on ambient temperatures having certain characteristics, such as a given mean or variance.

Metric:

Number of days or hours above/below critical cold stress/heat stress threshold

Units

Number

Example target

Site-specific

Example methods / guidance / references

What are tiers?

Tier 1

Estimate using own judgement and observations

Tier 2

Estimate using third-party professional estimates or public data

Tier 3

Model or measure based on site-specific surveys/sampling, remote or in-field sensing, laboratory analysis, etc.

Example data sources

Internal records

Third-party data sources

Maps of Australian temperature variables are available at the Bureau of Meteorology – Maps and gridded spatial data.

Site-specific measurements or model outputs

Data on Australian climate variables from 1889 to the present in point and grid form are available at Long Paddock – SILO (Scientific Information for Land Owners)

Notes

The relevant target and time period for high/low temperature stress will depend on the production system, target productivity level and climate, e.g. sheep production is particularly vulnerable to cold stress at lambing and immediately after shearing, and heat stress at joining and during pregnancy. Furthermore, heat and cold stress can be affected by numerous variables in addition to air temperature, therefore a heat or cold stress index may be more appropriate than a simple temperature threshold.