Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Oct 17;16(20):3959.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph16203959.

Future Heat Waves in Different European Capitals Based on Climate Change Indicators

Jürgen Junk  1 , Klaus Goergen  2   3 , Andreas Krein  4
Affiliations

Future Heat Waves in Different European Capitals Based on Climate Change Indicators

Jürgen Junk et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Changes in the frequency and intensity of heat waves have shown substantial negative impacts on public health. At the same time, climate change towards increasing air temperatures throughout Europe will foster such extreme events, leading to the population being more exposed to them and societies becoming more vulnerable. Based on two climate change scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 and 8.5) we analysed the frequency and intensity of heat waves for three capital cities in Europe representing a North-South transect (London, Luxembourg, Rome). We used indices proposed by the Expert Team on Sector-Specific Climate Indices of the World Meteorological Organization to analyze the number of heat waves, the number of days that contribute to heat waves, the length of the longest heat waves, as well as the mean temperature during heat waves. The threshold for the definition of heat waves is calculated based on a reference period of 30 years for each of the three cities, allowing for a direct comparison of the projected changes between the cities. Changes in the projected air temperature between a reference period (1971-2000) and three future periods (2001-2030 near future, 2031-2060 middle future, and 2061-2090 far future) are statistically significant for all three cities and both emission scenarios. Considerable similarities could be identified for the different heat wave indices. This directly affects the risk of the exposed population and might also negatively influence food security and water supply.

Keywords: RCP4.5; RCP8.5; climate change indices; health risks; heat waves; regional climate projections.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Multi-model ensemble of mean annual air temperature values for London (a), Luxembourg (b), and Rome (c) based on two different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) (4.5 = blue; 8.5 = red). Spread is defined via +/− one standard deviation of the ensemble. Please note that the scale of Figure 1c is different from a and b.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Boxplots of mean anomalies of the “Warm spell duration indicator” (WSDI) per year with reference to the 30-year period 1971–2000 for the three cities London (grey), Luxembourg (blue), and Rome (red) and two different RCPs. Whiskers = 5/95 percentile.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Boxplots of mean anomalies of the number of heat waves per year (HW-N) with reference to the 30-year period 1971–2000 for the three cities London (grey), Luxembourg (blue), and Rome (red) and two different RCPs. Whiskers = 5/95 percentile.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Boxplots of mean anomalies of the number of days’ contribution to heat waves each year (HW-F) with reference to the 30-year period 1971–2000 for the three cities London (grey), Luxembourg (blue), and Rome (red) and two different RCPs. Whiskers = 5/95 percentile.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Boxplots of mean anomalies of the length of the longest heat waves each year (HW-D) with reference to the 30-year period 1971–2000 for the three cities London (grey), Luxembourg (blue), and Rome (red) and two different RCPs. Whiskers = 5/95 percentile.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Boxplots of mean anomalies of the mean temperature of all heat waves per year (HW-M) with reference to the 30-year period 1971–2000 for the three cities London (grey), Luxembourg (blue), and Rome (red) and two different RCPs. Whiskers = 5/95 percentile.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. IPCC . In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Stocker T.F., Qin D., Plattner G.-K., Tignor M., Allen S.K., Boschung J., Nauels A., Xia Y., Bex V., Midgley P.M., editors. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK: New York, NY, USA: 2013. p. 1535. - DOI
    1. Field C.B., Barros V., Stocker T.F., Qin D., Dokken D.J., Ebi K.L., Mastrandrea M.D., Mach K.J., Plattner G.K., Allen S.K., et al. Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK: 2012. p. 582.
    1. Van Oldenborgh G.J., Philip S., Kew S., Vautard R., Boucher O., Otto F., Haustein K., Soubeyroux J.-M., Ribes A., Robin Y., et al. Human Contribution to the Record-Breaking June 2019 Heat Wave in France. World Weather Attribution (WWA); Amsterdam, Netherlands: 2019. p. 32.
    1. Easterling D.R., Meehl G.A., Parmesan C., Changnon S.A., Karl T.R., Mearns L.O. Climate Extremes: Observations, Modeling, and Impacts. Science. 2000;289:7. doi: 10.1126/science.289.5487.2068. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Mann M.E., Rahmstorf S., Kornhuber K., Steinman B.A., Miller S.K., Petri S., Coumou D. Projected changes in persistent extreme summer weather events: The role of quasi-resonant amplification. Sci. Adv. 2018;4:9. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aat3272. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types