Journal article
On the use of composite analyses to form physical hypotheses: An example from heat wave - SST associations
G Boschat, I Simmonds, A Purich, T Cowan, AB Pezza
Scientific Reports | NATURE PORTFOLIO | Published : 2016
DOI: 10.1038/srep29599
Abstract
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 ..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
This work has been financially supported by the Australian Research Council grants numbers DP140102855 and DP120103950. T.C. and A.P. are supported by the Goyder Institute for Water Research, and the Australian Climate Change Science Program. The T<INF>max</INF> and T<INF>min</INF> data at Perth station can be downloaded at http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/ and the ERA-Interim data is available at http://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/data/interim-fulldaily. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and thank the various climate groups for producing and making their model output available. Finally, we thank Dr P. Terray for the use of his STATPACK statistical set of tools.