Annual Summaries of Heatwave Aspects in Europe, as defined by the Excess Heat Factor

Published: 23 May 2022| Version 1 | DOI: 10.17632/n33fzh6wgy.1
Contributor:
A. P. Oliveira

Description

The dataset includes six yearly time series of six Heatwave aspects/metrics calculated from the E-OBS dataset (v19eHOM, available in https://www.ecad.eu/download/ensembles/downloadversion19.0eHOM.php) following the Excess Heat Factor methodology implemented in the ClimPACT tool, considering the extended summer season (from June to September) and covering the European region. Accordingly, each geodata file (GeoTIFF format, EPSG:4326) depicts a time series of a given type of annual statistical summary, comprising 69 bands from 1950 to 2018 (i.e., one per year). These heatwave annual aspects/metrics are as follows: (i) annual Number of Heatwaves (HWN) - the annual sum of the number of heatwave events, in file 'ehf_eobs_e19HOM_1950-2018_reference_1961-1990_ann_hwn.tif'; (ii) annual Heatwave Days Frequency (HWF) - the annual sum of the number of heatwave days, in file 'ehf_eobs_e19HOM_1950-2018_reference_1961-1990_ann_hwf.tif'; (iii) annual Maximum Heatwave Duration (HWD) - the annual maximum length (in number of days) of the heatwave events, in file 'ehf_eobs_e19HOM_1950-2018_reference_1961-1990_ann_hwd.tif'; (iv) annual Mean Heatwave Magnitude (HWM) - the annual mean intensity of the heatwave events, in file 'ehf_eobs_e19HOM_1950-2018_reference_1961-1990_ann_hwm.tif'; (v) annual Maximum Heatwave Amplitude (HWA) - the annual maximum intensity of the heatwave events, in file 'ehf_eobs_e19HOM_1950-2018_reference_1961-1990_ann_hwa.tif'; (vi) annual Maximum Heatwave Severity (HWS) - the annual maximum severity of the heatwave events, in file 'ehf_eobs_e19HOM_1950-2018_reference_1961-1990_ann_hws.tif'. These annual time series can be used in heatwave-related studies, particularly those focusing on climatology, trends and impacts on human health. Further details on the methodologies are described in the 'Steps to reproduce' section, as well as in the source scientific publication (Oliveira at al., 2022). A. Oliveira, A. Lopes, A. Soares (2022). Excess Heat Factor climatology, trends, and exposure across European Functional Urban Areas, Weather and Climate Extremes, 36, Elsevier. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2022.100455

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Steps to reproduce

The Annual Summaries of Heatwave aspects/metrics in Europe, as defined by the Excess Heat Factor (EHF), were calculated through the ClimPACT tool, an R-based tool that aims to facilitate the calculation of extreme temperature indices, ensuring quality control over the input data as well as compliance with the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ET-SCI) framework (Alexander et al., 2013; L and N., 2015; Alexander and Herold, 2016) - see https://climpact-sci.org/ for further details. The ClimPACT tool requires Daily Mean Temperature as the main input to calculate the EHF summaries - the gridded calculation workflow was implemented, following the instructions provided by the user guide (https://github.com/ARCCSS-extremes/climpact/blob/master/www/user_guide/Climpact_user_guide.md). The 1961-1990 reference climatology was used, for threshold calculation. Input Daily Maximum (TX) and Minimum (TN) near-surface air temperature data corresponding to the extended summer season (from June to September) from the gridded Europe-wide ensemble dataset (E-OBS) - homogenised version ‘19.0eHOM’, at 0.1° × 0.1° spatial resolution. The input data was retrieved from the EU-FP6 project UERRA (http://www.uerra.eu) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service, based on station observations data provided by the European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D project, available at https://www.ecad.eu) (Cornes et al., 2018). The outputs of the ClimPACT tool correspond to gridded annual statistical summaries of the positive EHF days, as follows: (i) annual Number of Heatwaves (HWN); (ii) annual Heatwave Days Frequency (HWF); (iii) annual Maximum Heatwave Duration (HWD); (iv) annual Mean Heatwave Magnitude (HWM); and (v) annual Maximum Heatwave Amplitude (HWA). In addition, the annual maximum Heatwave Severity (HWS) was calculated, by dividing HWA by the 85th percentile of the positive EHF days - details on this are described in the source scientific publication (Oliveira at al., 2022). References: L. Alexander, N. Herold (2016). ClimPACT2 Indices and Software. University and of S. Wales, Sydney, Australia. L. Alexander, H. Yang, S. Perkins (2013). ClimPACT Indices and Software, Manual Prepared for the Workshop on Enhancing Climate Indices for Sector-specific Applications. CIIFEN Headquarters, Guayaquil, Ecuador. [software] (2015) ClimPACTv2: Indices and Software. Technical Report of the World Meteorological Organisation Commission for Climatology Expert Team on Sector-specific Climate Indices A. Oliveira, A. Lopes, A. Soares (2022). Excess Heat Factor climatology, trends, and exposure across European Functional Urban Areas, Weather and Climate Extremes, 36, Elsevier. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2022.100455

Categories

Temperature, Europe, Climate Data, Extreme Event

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