The overall effect of these efforts is a considerable reduction in production risk, improved farm incomes and less pressure on the resource base. The method provides analogue years or seasons which can then be used to extract daily parameters for input into cropping and pasture simulation models. Similar statistical techniques have also been used to extract sea-surface temperature 'phases' produced from analyses of Pacific and Indian Ocean temperature data. Indeed, we have also applied the same statistical technique to provide more useful output for our purposes from output of GCM's. A useful 'by-product' of the integrated climate forecast system described above is the production of climate forecast output such as cumulative probability distributions of rainfall and frost for many Australian and world locations and regions.
Maps showing the probability of exceeding median rainfall are now available for any world region.