- Title
- Characterizing Australia's east coast cyclones (1950–2019)
- Creator
- Gray, Jessie; Verdon-Kidd, Danielle; Jaffrés, Jasmine; Hewson, Michael; Clarke, John; Sharma, Krishneel; English, Nathan
- Date
- 2023
- Type
- Text; Journal article
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/196618
- Identifier
- vital:18720
- Identifier
-
https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.8032
- Identifier
- ISSN:0899-8418 (ISSN)
- Abstract
- East coast cyclones (ECCs) provide an essential reprieve from dry periods across eastern Australia. They also deliver flood-producing rains with significant economic, social and environmental impacts. Assessing and comparing the influence of different types of cyclones is hindered by an incomplete understanding of ECC typology, given their widely variable spatial and temporal characteristics. This study employs a track-clustering method (probabilistic, curve-aligned regression model) to identify key cyclonic pathways for ECCs from 1950 to 2019. Six spatially independent clusters were successfully distinguished and further sub-classified (coastal, continental and tropical) based on their genesis location. The seasonality and long-term variability, intensity (maximum Laplacian value ± 2 days) and event-based rainfall were then evaluated for each cluster to quantify the impact of these lows on Australia. The highest quantity of land-based rainfall per event is associated with the tropical cluster (Cluster 6), whereas widespread rainfall was also found to occur in the two continental clusters (clusters 4 and 5). Cyclone tracks orientated close to the coast (clusters 1, 2 and 3) were determined to be the least impactful in terms of rainfall and intensity, despite being the most common cyclone type. In terms of interannual variability, sea surface temperature anomalies suggest an increased cyclone frequency for clusters 1 (austral winter) and 4 (austral spring) during a central Pacific El Niño. Furthermore, cyclone incidence during IOD-negative conditions was more pronounced in winter for clusters 1, 2, 3— and clusters 4 and 5 in spring. All cyclones also predominantly occurred in SAM-positive conditions. However, winter ECCs for clusters 1 and 3 had a higher frequency in SAM-negative. This new typology of ECCs via spatial clustering provides crucial insights into the systems that produce extreme rainfall across eastern Australia and should be used to inform future hazard management of cyclone events. © 2023 The Authors. International Journal of Climatology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Meteorological Society.
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons Ltd
- Relation
- International Journal of Climatology Vol. 43, no. 7 (2023), p. 3324-3352
- Rights
- All metadata describing materials held in, or linked to, the repository is freely available under a CC0 licence
- Rights
- http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
- Rights
- Copyright @ 2023 The Authors
- Rights
- Open Access
- Subject
- 3701 Atmospheric sciences; 3702 Climate change science; 3707 Hydrology; Australia; East coast cyclones; Eastern seaboard; ECL; ENSO; IOD; Regression mixture model cluster analysis
- Full Text
- Reviewed
- Funder
- Jessie L.Gray acknowledges the financial support of Central Queensland University (CQU), financial support from a postgraduate scholarship from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO, John Clarke supervising) and C&R Consulting. The authors would like to acknowledge Jason Bell and the CQUniversity HPC computing facility for computation and programming assistance. Finally, the authors would like to acknowledge the First Nations Peoples, the Bindal and Wulgurukaba, of the land this research was conducted on and we also pay our respect to their elder's past, present and emerging. Open access publishing facilitated by Central Queensland University, as part of the Wiley - Central Queensland University agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.
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