Peter Gibson

PhD Student

Climate Change Research Centre

Climate Change Research Centre

UNSW Sydney

Biography

Peter's work is centred around exploring the role of both natural and human contributions to Australian heat wave formation in the recent past (20th century) and future (21st century). He employs statistical methods (synoptic weather typing) to examine the synoptic scale atmospheric circulation linked to heat wave events in observational data, and then use this to determine the extent to which heat waves are simulated realistically in climate models. Subsequently, he will investigate the role of natural climate variability and human induced climate change in altering the probabilistic occurrence of weather types conducive to heat wave development/persistence.