A spatiodynamic model for assessing frost risk in south-eastern Australia

Abstract

Previous climate research concluded that causal influences which have contributed to changes in frost risk in south-eastern Australia include greenhouse gas concentration, El-Niño southern oscillation and other effects. Some of the climatic indices representing these effects have spatiotemporal misalignment and may have a spatially and temporally varying effect on observed data. Other indices are constructed from grid-referenced physical models, which creates a point-to-area problem. To address these issues we use a spatiodynamic model, which comprises a blending of spatially varying and temporally dynamic parameters. For the data that we examine the model proposed performs well in out-of-sample validation compared with a spatiotemporal model