Uncertainties in characterising historical heatwaves in Europe

Abstract

Heatwaves are periods of excessively hot weather which can pose a threat to both the people and the agriculture affected by them, for this reason it is important for us to understand and be able to predict heatwaves. This study will therefore investigate historical heatwaves in Europe and compare the quality of different 2m surface temperature datasets and examine the possibility of using 3D temperature data to identify heatwaves. This was achieved by comparing different temperature datasets and evaluating their uncertainty at different temperature and pressure levels. The results show that there is uncertainty between datasets when looking at 2m surface temperatures, this uncertainty also grows at more extreme temperatures such as those experienced during heatwaves. The report also shows that one possible culprit for this uncertainty is the urban heat island, and as such raises the value of evaluating maximum & minimum temperatures further in future studies. Additionally, the 3D temperature data was found to be impossible to compare accurately due to significant differences in the datasets. It was also found that with the datasets used for this study it was not possible to improve the quality of identification for heatwaves using 3D temperature data.