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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 112, D15103, doi:10.1029/2007JD008510, 2007

Doubled length of western European summer heat waves since 1880

P. M. Della-Marta

Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Federal Office for Meteorology and Climatology, MeteoSwiss, Zurich, Switzerland
Bureau of Meteorology, National Climate Centre, Melbourne, Australia


M. R. Haylock

Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK


J. Luterbacher

Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
National Center of Competence in Research on Climate (NCCR), Bern, Switzerland


H. Wanner

Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
National Center of Competence in Research on Climate (NCCR), Bern, Switzerland


Abstract

We analyzed a new data set of 54 high-quality homogenized daily maximum temperature series from western Europe (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom) to define more accurately the change in extreme warm Daily Summer Maximum Temperature (DSMT). Results from the daily temperature homogeneity analysis suggest that many instrumental measurements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were warm-biased. Correcting for these biases, over the period 1880 to 2005 the length of summer heat waves over western Europe has doubled and the frequency of hot days has almost tripled. The DSMT Probability Density Function (PDF) shows significant changes in the mean (+1.6 ± 0.4°C) and variance (+6 ± 2%). These conclusions help further the evidence that western Europe's climate has become more extreme than previously thought and that the hypothesized increase in variance of future summer temperature has indeed been a reality over the last 126 years.

Received 5 February 2007; accepted 16 May 2007; published 3 August 2007.

Keywords: Climate extremes; observations; temperature.

Index Terms: 1616 Global Change: Climate variability (1635, 3305, 3309, 4215, 4513); 3309 Atmospheric Processes: Climatology (1616, 1620, 3305, 4215, 8408); 4215 Oceanography: General: Climate and interannual variability (1616, 1635, 3305, 3309, 4513).

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Citation: Della-Marta, P. M., M. R. Haylock, J. Luterbacher, and H. Wanner (2007), Doubled length of western European summer heat waves since 1880, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D15103, doi:10.1029/2007JD008510.