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Data

Historical Heatwaves in Australia 

Ver: 1.0
Status of Data: completed
Update Frequency: Data not provided
Security Classification: unclassified
Record Last Modified: 2025-12-02
Viewed 3369 times
Accessed 301 times
Dataset Created: 2020-08-20
Dataset Published: 2020-09-02
Data can be accessed from the following links:
HTTPPoint-of-truth metadata URLHTTPro-crate-metadata.jsonOPeNDAPCatalog view - Historical Heatwave DataOPeNDAPDownload Historical Heatwave Data - MS Excel format
How to cite this collection:
Trancoso, R., Syktus, J., Toombs, N. & Wong, K. (2020). Historical Heatwaves in Australia. Version 1.0. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. https://dx.doi.org/10.25901/5f4f2c6e8b66c 
Heatwaves are defined as unusually high temperature events that occur for at least three consecutive days with major impacts to human health, economy, agriculture and ecosystems. This dataset provides time-series of heatwave characteristics such as peak temperature, number of events, frequency and duration from 1950 to 2016 in Australia. The analysis were based on daily minimum and maximum temperature obtained from the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP). The data is available as spatial time-series (5km grid-cell) and aggregated time-series for all Local Government Areas in Australia. 
Credit
We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. 
Purpose
The paper entitled "Heatwaves intensification in Australia: A consistent trajectory across past, present and future" has been published in Science of the Total Environment describing the historical and projected changes in heatwaves characteristics. The "Historical Heatwaves in Australia" dataset accounts for the historical component and is released to provide access to researchers and stakeholders to information on the key heatwave characteristics during the 1950 to 2016 period. The dataset was derived following methodology adopted by the Bureau of Meteorology to assess and monitor heatwaves based on the Excess Heat Factor. 
Lineage
Data not provided. 
Method DocumentationData not provided.
Procedure Steps

1. 

Excess Heat Factor: We used observed daily surface temperature (minima and maxima) with 5 km spatial resolution for historical records (period 1950–2016) for the entire Australia obtained from the Australian Water Availability Project – AWAP. We explore the Excess Heat Factor (EHF) to measure and monitor heatwaves. In order to represent and quantify heatwave changes we explore a range of different characteristics of heatwaves such as peak temperature, number of events, frequency and duration following the approach adopted in previous heatwave studies. The heatwave characteristics are represented by four indices based on the EHF named: Heatwave peak temperature, Heatwave Number, Heatwave Frequency and Heatwave Duration. Other methodological details are described in the paper by Trancoso et al (2020): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720340432. 

Australia-wide (latitude = 112 - 154E; longitude = 10 - 44S)
Temporal Coverage
From 1950-01-01 to 2016-12-31 
Spatial Resolution

Data not provided.

Vertical Extent

Between 0 and 0 Meters

Data Quality Assessment Scope
Data not provided. 
Data Quality Report
Data not provided. 
Data Quality Assessment Outcome
Refer to the Australian Water Availability Project – AWAP for the details about the underlying dataset: https://web.archive.org/web/20200316041345/http://www.csiro.au/awap/ 
ANZSRC - FOR
Climate change processes
Climatology
Natural hazards
GCMD Sciences
ATMOSPHERE - HEAT WAVE
CLIMATE INDICATORS
CLIMATE INDICATORS - EXTREME WEATHER
CLIMATE INDICATORS - TEMPERATURE INDICES
CLIMATE INDICATORS - TEMPERATURE VARIABILITY
Horizontal Resolution
1 km - < 10 km or approximately .01 degree - < .09 degree
Parameters
heatwave duration
heatwave frequency
heatwave peak temperature
heatwaves per year
Temporal Resolution
Annual
Topic
climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
disaster
environment
geoscientificInformation
society
User Defined
Climate change
Climate extremes; Extreme temperature; Extreme heat, Heat waves
Author
Trancoso, Ralph
Co-Author
Syktus, Jozef
Toombs, Nathan
Wong, Kenneth Koon-Ho
Contact Point
Trancoso, Ralph
Publisher
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Supplementary Information for "Heatwaves intensification in Australia: A consistent trajectory across past, present and future"
Heatwaves intensification in Australia: A consistent trajectory across past, present and future
Queensland Future Climate Website - Heatwaves Case Study
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}. 
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