Climate of the East Coast of Australia
A set of climate statistics for 16 coastal locations along Eastern Australia. These sites were chosen to be approximately equally spaced to cover the whole eastern coast of Australia. For each site, climate statistics were calculated for the standard 30-year period 1971-2000. Only sites with nearly-complete data were chosen.
data(EastAuClimate)
A data frame with the following 10 variables and 5 items of metadata for each of 16 sites.
SummerMaxTemp
average daily maximum air temperature (degrees C) in February.
SummerMinTemp
average daily minimum air temperature (degrees C) in February.
WinterMaxTemp
average daily maximum air temperature (degrees C) in July.
WinterMinTemp
average daily minimum air temperature (degrees C) in July.
SummerRain
median total precipitation in February (mm/month).
WinterRain
median total precipitation in July (mm/month).
MeanAnnRain
average total amount of precipitation recorded in a year (mm/year).
RainDays
average number of days in a year with at least 1 mm of precipitation.
ClearDays
average number of clear days in a year. This statistic is derived from cloud cover observations, which are measured in oktas (eighths). A clear day is recorded when the mean of the 9 am and 3 pm cloud observations is less than or equal to 2 oktas.
CloudyDays
average number of clear days in a year. A cloudy day is recorded when the mean of the 9 am and 3 pm cloud observations is greater than or equal to 6 oktas.
ID
BOM Site number.
Latitude
Site latitude (degrees North).
Longitude
Site longitude (degrees East).
Elevation
Site elevation (m).
State
Australian state: TAS = Tasmania, VIC = Victoria, NSW = New South Wales, QLD = Queensland.
The row names of the data frame give the location names. Note: these are not the official names of the climate stations.
Sites were chosen by hand from maps on the Bureau of Meteorology website. The data were extracted manually from web pages under http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ and processed to extract a subset of statistics. - by Felix Andrews felix@nfrac.org
Bureau of Meteorology, Commonwealth of Australia. Product IDCJCM0026 Prepared at Wed 31 Dec 2008.
Definitions of statistics adapted from http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/cdo/about/about-stats.shtml
data(EastAuClimate) ## Compare the climates of state capital cities EastAuClimate[c("Hobart", "Melbourne", "Sydney", "Brisbane"),] ## A function to plot maps (a Lattice version of maps::map) lmap <- function(database = "world", regions = ".", exact = FALSE, boundary = TRUE, interior = TRUE, projection = "", parameters = NULL, orientation = NULL, aspect = "iso", type = "l", par.settings = list(axis.line = list(col = "transparent")), xlab = NULL, ylab = NULL, ...) { theMap <- map(database, regions, exact = exact, boundary = boundary, interior = interior, projection = projection, parameters = parameters, orientation = orientation, plot = FALSE) xyplot(y ~ x, theMap, type = type, aspect = aspect, par.settings = par.settings, xlab = xlab, ylab = ylab, default.scales = list(draw = FALSE), ...) } ## Plot the sites on a map of Australia if (require("maps")) { lmap(regions = c("Australia", "Australia:Tasmania"), exact = TRUE, projection = "rectangular", parameters = 150, xlim = c(130, 170), panel = function(...) { panel.xyplot(...) with(EastAuClimate, { panel.points(Longitude, Latitude, pch = 16) txt <- row.names(EastAuClimate) i <- c(3, 4) panel.text(Longitude[ i], Latitude[ i], txt[ i], pos = 2) panel.text(Longitude[-i], Latitude[-i], txt[-i], pos = 4) }) }) } ## Average daily maximum temperature in July (Winter). xyplot(WinterMaxTemp ~ Latitude, EastAuClimate, aspect = "xy", type = c("p", "a"), ylab = "Temperature (degrees C)") ## (Make a factor with levels in order - by coastal location) siteNames <- factor(row.names(EastAuClimate), levels = row.names(EastAuClimate)) ## Plot temperature ranges (as bars), color-coded by RainDays segplot(siteNames ~ WinterMinTemp + SummerMaxTemp, EastAuClimate, level = RainDays, sub = "Color scale: number of rainy days per year", xlab = "Temperature (degrees C)", main = paste("Typical temperature range and wetness", "of coastal Australian cities", sep = "\n")) ## Show Winter and Summer temperature ranges separately segplot(Latitude ~ WinterMinTemp + SummerMaxTemp, EastAuClimate, main = "Average daily temperature ranges \n of coastal Australian sites", ylab = "Latitude", xlab = "Temperature (degrees C)", par.settings = simpleTheme(lwd = 3, alpha = 0.5), key = list(text = list(c("July (Winter)", "February (Summer)")), lines = list(col = c("blue", "red"))), panel = function(x, y, z, ..., col) { with(EastAuClimate, { panel.segplot(WinterMinTemp, WinterMaxTemp, z, ..., col = "blue") panel.segplot(SummerMinTemp, SummerMaxTemp, z, ..., col = "red") }) }) ## Northern sites have Summer-dominated rainfall; ## Southern sites have Winter-dominated rainfall. xyplot(SummerRain + WinterRain ~ Latitude, EastAuClimate, type = c("p", "a"), auto.key = list(lines = TRUE), ylab = "Rainfall (mm / month)") ## Clear days are most frequent in the mid latitudes. xyplot(RainDays + CloudyDays + ClearDays ~ Latitude, EastAuClimate, type = c("p", "a"), auto.key = list(lines = TRUE), ylab = "Days per year")
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