School of Earth Sciences - Research Publications

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    On the use of composite analyses to form physical hypotheses: An example from heat wave - SST associations
    Boschat, G ; Simmonds, I ; Purich, A ; Cowan, T ; Pezza, AB (NATURE PORTFOLIO, 2016-07-14)
    This paper highlights some caveats in using composite analyses to form physical hypotheses on the associations between environmental variables. This is illustrated using a specific example, namely the apparent links between heat waves (HWs) and sea surface temperatures (SSTs). In this case study, a composite analysis is performed to show the large-scale and regional SST conditions observed during summer HWs in Perth, southwest Australia. Composite results initially point to the importance of the subtropical South Indian Ocean, where physically coherent SST dipole anomalies appear to form a necessary condition for HWs to develop across southwest Australia. However, sensitivity tests based on pattern correlation analyses indicate that the vast majority of days when the identified SST pattern appears are overwhelmingly not associated with observed HWs, which suggests that this is definitely not a sufficient condition for HW development. Very similar findings are obtained from the analyses of 15 coupled climate model simulations. The results presented here have pertinent implications and applications for other climate case studies, and highlight the importance of applying comprehensive statistical approaches before making physical inferences on apparent climate associations.
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    Erratum: On the use of composite analyses to form physical hypotheses: An example from heat wave - SST associations.
    Boschat, G ; Simmonds, I ; Purich, A ; Cowan, T ; Pezza, AB (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2016-08-24)
    Scientific Reports 6: Article number: 29599; published online: 14 July 2016; updated: 24 August 2016 This Article contains an error in the legend of Table 1. “Results are computed for the entire 3150 days in DJF (black values) and for the 25 HW days selected in DJF (bold italic) during 1979–2014,” should read:
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    Large scale and sub-regional connections in the lead up to summer heat wave and extreme rainfall events in eastern Australia
    Boschat, G ; Pezza, A ; Simmonds, I ; Perkins, S ; Cowan, T ; Purich, A (SPRINGER, 2015-04)