Adaptation to climate change:

Management of environmental

heat stress

Christine Killip Atmospheric Scientist and

Managing Director of Katestone

Adaptation strategy

• Step 1. Hazard identification

• Step 2. Risk assessment

• Step 3. Risk control options

• Step 4. Recommendations and

implementation strategies

“Adaptation means anticipating the adverse

effects of climate change and taking appropriate

action to prevent or minimise the damage they can

cause” European Commission

Step 1. Hazard identification

What is heat stress ?

• All animals have a need to maintain core body temperature within a small range. – 36.5 to 37.5°C for humans

– 39°C +/- 0.5 to 1.2 °C for cattle

• When the heat load exceeds a certain threshold

• The body’s thermoregulation response is overwhelmed

• Core temperatures increase

External

Temperature

Direct and reflected

radiation

Internal

Metabolic

Muscle work

Conduction

Convection

(passive or forced)

Radiation

Evaporation

Step 2. Risk Assessment

Risk Climate Likelihood Consequence

Influences Responses

Weather events Animal

Health

Financial loss

Compliance

Reputation

The HLI

• The heat load is measured through the HLI (Heat Load

Index)

if BGT < 25°C:

HLI = 1.3 * BGT + 0.28 * RH – WS + 10.66

if BGT > 25°C :

HLI = 1.55 * BGT + 0.38 * RH – 0.5 * WS + e(2.4 - WS) + 8.62

Where:

BGT = Black globe temperature

RH = relative humidity (decimal form)

WS = wind speed (m/s)

Accumulated Heat Load

• The accumulation and dissipation of heat load is defined

by Accumulated Heat Load Units (AHLU)

• Varies with cattle type and feedlot conditions

– Coat colour, health, days on feed, type of feed, acclimatisation

status

– Pen management (manure and water)

• Important process to determine carried over heat

load to the next day

Consequences

• Health and well being of cattle has

significant economic and moral implication

• Heat stress can result in loss of production

and in extreme cases cattle death

• Significant issue for the industry to

manage

• Pen management

– Add shade

– Reduce manure load in pens prior to an event

– Add extra water troughs

• Schedule cattle moves when AHLU is low (not just HLI), move sick cattle to shaded pens

• Change to heat load ration (3 days in advance)

Step 3. Risk control options

Step 4. Recommendations and

implementation

• Education and training

• Standardisation

• Easy access to the right information

• Online RAP

• Site specific forecasts accurate 3-4 days

out (hourly time steps)

Nice images of CHLT

The Katestone forecasting system

World Met Office

(WMO) data store

Worldwide

Millions of sites

Decades of data

Central collection

AWS

Ships

Aircraft

Balloons

Buoys

Satellites

Observations

WRF-ARF

12 Km resolution

Australia wide

4 days in 1 hour intervals

Katestone

(K-WRF)

GFS

Worldwide

0.5 Deg Resolution

7 Days @ 3 hour

intervals

International

Global Model

Dr John Gaughan

Research

Calculate 15 parameters for every hour

for each of the 91 general sites and 119

registered feedlots.

Check for 256 alert thresholds.

Katestone HPC

Forecast pages

CHLT Website

Email and SMS

Alerts

BOM AWS Observations

On site AWS

HLI maps for Australia

1. Calc

AHLU

3. Check

forecast

4. Assess

risk

2. Set your

alerts

Has the

adaptation

strategy helped?

Evidence

• Feedlots that followed well documented heat load management plans were able to manage the event

• Feedlots that weren’t as well managed had a higher impacts

• This indicates successfully implementation of an adaptation strategy through: – hazard identification

– risk assessment

– development of control options

• Will provide a good foundation for the industry to manage the potential changes to frequency of extreme events likely as a result of climate change

Thank you

Thanks to MLA for continued

support and the rest of the

Katestone team.

Please e-mail any questions to

christine@katestone.com.au

Katestone

PO Box 2217

Milton, QLD, 4064

References

• Gaughan et al., 2008. A new heat load index for feedlot cattle. Journal of

Animal Science, vol. 86 no. 1 226-234

• Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO (2010) State of the climate

• Hanna, E.G., Kjellstrom, T., Bennett, C. and Dear, K. (2011) Climate Change

and rising heat: population implications for working people in Australia. Asia

Pacific Journal of Public Health, 23 (2 Suppl.), 14S-26S

• Parson, K (2003) Human Thermal Environments – The effects of hot,

moderate and cold environments on Human Health, Comfort and

Performance. Taylor & Frances, London

• Maloney, S. and Forbes, C. (2011) What effect will a few degrees of climate

change have on human heat balance? Implications for human activity.

International Journal of Biometeorology, 55, 147.

• MLA (2006) Tips and Tools – Heat load in feedlot cattle