Abstract

Heatwaves (HWs) are one of the “natural” hazards with the greatest impact worldwide in terms of mortality and economic losses, and their effects may be exacerbated in large urban areas. For these reasons, more detailed analyses of urban HW trends represent a priority that cannot be neglected. In this study, HW trends were investigated during the warmest period of the year (May–September) by using a slightly improved version of the EuroHEAT HW definition applied on long meteorological time-series (36-year period, 1980–2015) collected by weather stations located in the capitals of the 28 European Union member countries. Comparisons between two 18-year sub-periods (1980–1997 vs. 1998–2015) were carried out and a city-specific HW hazard index (HWHI), accounting for the main HW characteristics, was proposed. Most of the capitals revealed significant positive trends of the majority of HW hazard characteristics and substantial HWHI increases were observed during the sub-period 1998–2015, especially in the central-eastern and southeastern cities. Conversely, minor HWHI increases were observed in most of the northern capitals and opposite situations were even observed in several northern and especially southwestern cities. The results of this study represent a support for planning urban HW-related mitigation and adaptation strategies with the priority given to the southeastern cities.

Highlights

  • Heatwaves (HWs) are one of the “natural” hazards with the greatest impact worldwide in terms of mortality and economic losses

  • The results shown follow the geographical scheme provided by the United Nation Statistics

  • The highest absolute values of ATmax and Tmin during HW days (HWD) were observed in southern cities with median values of 37 ◦ C and 20 ◦ C

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Summary

Introduction

Heatwaves (HWs) are one of the “natural” hazards with the greatest impact worldwide in terms of mortality and economic losses. Atmosphere 2017, 8, 115 persistence measured in HW consecutive days: 2003 in much of the northwestern and central-western part of Europe and in northern Italy [3], 2006 in central-western and northwestern Europe [4], 2007 in southeastern Europe [5,6], 2010 in eastern Europe and European Russia [7], 2013 in the UK [8] and, more recently, 2014 in the Scandinavian countries, and 2015 in central-western Europe. Most of these HWs were included in the top ten European HWS that have occurred in Europe since 1950 [9]

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