Environmental Research Letters · 2015 · 712 citations · 37 references
EngineeringExtreme WeatherClimate ModelingRussian HeatwaveClimate CrisisClimate PolicyEarth ScienceSocial SciencesSpatial DistributionThermodynamicsClimate ChangeClimate SciencesMeteorologyClimate HazardsGlobal Warming ModellingGeographyMagnitude IndexWeather DisasterClimate IssueHeat TransferEarth's ClimateClimate DynamicsClimatologyClimate DisasterThermal EngineeringUrban Climate
The Russian 2010 heatwave, the worst in Europe since 1950, underscored the need for a universal index that captures both duration and magnitude of extreme heat events. The study ranks the top ten European heatwaves from 1950 to 2014 using an improved heat wave magnitude index daily and maps the spatial extent of the 2015 heatwave. An enhanced heat wave magnitude index daily is applied to quantify and compare heatwave intensity across Europe. All top events had strong historical impacts, the 1972 Finland heatwave matched the 2003 event, and climate projections for 2021–2040 indicate a higher probability of heatwaves comparable to or exceeding the 2010 Russian event, especially under RCP8.5 than RCP4.5, highlighting the need for proactive vulnerability assessments and adaptation strategies.
The Russian heatwave in 2010 killed tens of thousands of people, and was by far the worst event in Europe since at least 1950, according to recent studies and a novel universal heatwave index capturing both the duration and magnitude of heatwaves. Here, by taking an improved version of this index, namely the heat wave magnitude index daily, we rank the top ten European heatwaves that occurred in the period 1950–2014, and show the spatial distribution of the magnitude of the most recent heatwave in summer 2015. We demonstrate that all these events had a strong impact reported in historical newspapers. We further reveal that the 1972 heatwave in Finland had a comparable spatial extent and magnitude as the European heatwave of 2003, considered the second strongest heatwave of the observational era. In the next two decades (2021–2040), regional climate projections suggest that Europe experiences an enhanced probability for heatwaves comparable to or greater than the magnitude, extent and duration of the Russian heatwave in 2010. We demonstrate that the probability of experiencing a major European heatwave in the coming decades is higher in RCP8.5 than RCP4.5 even though global mean temperature projections do not differ substantially. This calls for a proactive vulnerability assessment in Europe in support of formulating heatwave adaptation strategies to reduce the adverse impacts of heatwaves.
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Bootstrap Methods: Another Look at the Jackknife
B. Efron · The Annals of Statistics · 1979 · 17.1K citations · Full text