EGU22-4390, updated on 28 Apr 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-4390
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Extreme heatwaves in Europe 1950-2020: analysis of the links between meteorology, population, and impacts

Théo Mandonnet1, Aglaé Jézéquel1,2, Fabio D'Andrea1, Améline Vallet3,4, and Céline Guivarch4
Théo Mandonnet et al.
  • 1LMD/IPSL, Ecole Normale Superieure, PSL Research University, Paris, France (theo.mandonnet@ensta-paris.fr)
  • 2École des Ponts ParisTech, Cité Descartes, Champs-sur-Marne, France
  • 3Ecologie Systématique Evolution, AgroParisTech, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France
  • 4CIRED, École des Ponts Paris Tech, Champs-sur-Marne, France

There is high confidence that heatwaves will become more frequent and more intense under the influence of climate change. Different definitions of heatwaves exist based on the statistical distribution of temperature, in general using thresholds and duration and extension criteria.
If one observes the overlap between these definitions and the actual human and material damage produced by heatwaves, it appears that there is low consistency between the two. In other terms, a large amplitude heatwave in the physical climatological sense may not be equivalently as large in terms of impacts.
By crossing meteorological (E-OBS), demographic (WorldPop, GHS-POP), and impact (EM-DAT) databases at the European scale, we developed indices to classify heatwaves and select extreme ones in terms of impacts. We also proposed a method to evaluate the classification abilities of these indices. Including demographic data in the indices seems central to understand the links between meteorological conditions and observed impacts.

How to cite: Mandonnet, T., Jézéquel, A., D'Andrea, F., Vallet, A., and Guivarch, C.: Extreme heatwaves in Europe 1950-2020: analysis of the links between meteorology, population, and impacts, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-4390, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-4390, 2022.

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