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This assessment of the vulnerability of Australia's biodiversity to climate change was begun in early 2007 in response to a request from the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council. This introductory chapter outlines the scope of the assessment and the approach to it taken by the Expert Advisory Group (EAG). The structure of the assessment is then presented in the form of a chapter-by-chapter synopsis, which lays out the flow of logic in the assessment and the major topics addressed by the EAG. Finally, the chapter describes the aims and characteristics of the assessment's key messages and policy directions.

A high resolution climate model simulation has been performed for the first time for Fiji's climatology. The simulation involved a numerical experiment for a ten-year period (1975-1984), and was conducted at a horizontal resolution of eight kilometers in a stretched-grid configuration, which is currently the highest resolution at which a global climate model has been applied for regional climatology simulations. Analysis of model-generated data demonstrates a fairly good skill of the annual cycles of maximum and minimum temperatures and rainfall at selected locations in Fiji. The model has also successfully reproduced the pattern of maximum and minimum surface air temperatures between the western and central division of Fiji. Model simulation of spatial and temporal distribution of monthly total rainfall (10 year mean) over the main island of Viti Levu in Fiji shows that it reproduces the observed intraseasonal and interannual variability; the influence of the El Nino phenomena has also been captured well in the model-simulated rainfall.