Saharan air intrusions as a relevant mechanism for Iberian heatwaves: The record breaking events of August 2018 and June 2019
The summers of 2018 and 2019 were characterized by unusually warm conditions over Europe. Here, we describe the intense heatwaves striking the Iberian Peninsula in early August 2018 and late June 2019. The 2018 episode was relatively short-lived but outstanding in amplitude, particularly in western...
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ftcsic:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/207930 2023-05-15T17:37:18+02:00 Saharan air intrusions as a relevant mechanism for Iberian heatwaves: The record breaking events of August 2018 and June 2019 Barriopedro, David García Herrera, Ricardo Sousa, Pedro M. Ramos, Alexandre M. Espírito-Santo, F. Trigo, Ricardo M. 2019 http://hdl.handle.net/10261/207930 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2019.100224 eng eng Elsevier info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/690462 Postprint http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2019.100224 Sí doi:10.1016/j.wace.2019.100224 issn: 2212-0947 Weather and Climate Extremes 26 (2019) http://hdl.handle.net/10261/207930 openAccess http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ artículo 2019 ftcsic https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2019.100224 2021-08-31T23:35:18Z The summers of 2018 and 2019 were characterized by unusually warm conditions over Europe. Here, we describe the intense heatwaves striking the Iberian Peninsula in early August 2018 and late June 2019. The 2018 episode was relatively short-lived but outstanding in amplitude, particularly in western Iberia. Similar to previous mega-heatwaves, the 2019 event was long-lasting and affected large areas of western and central Europe, including eastern Iberia. During these events, many absolute temperature records were broken in western and eastern Iberia, respectively (some of them standing since 2003). In both cases, a cyclonic circulation off the coast in the northeastern Atlantic and a strong subtropical ridge pattern over the affected area promoted the advection of an anomalously warm air mass. This paper highlights the role of these very warm, stable and dry air intrusions of Saharan origin in the western and eastern Iberia heatwave events. Using a thermodynamical classification based on the geopotential height thickness and potential temperature, we show how the magnitude and poleward extension of these Saharan intrusions were unprecedented in the period since 1948. The relationship between Iberian heatwaves and Saharan warm air intrusions is discussed in the long-term context, showing a closer link in southern sectors of the Peninsula. However, a consistent poleward trend in the latitudinal extension of these subtropical intrusions reveals their increasing relevance for heatwaves in northern sectors of Iberia and western Europe. This overall trend is accompanied by an apparent “see-saw” in the occurrence of subtropical intrusions between eastern and western Iberia on multi-decadal scales. We acknowledge the E-OBS dataset from the EU-FP6 project ENSEMBLES (http://ensembleseu.metoffice.com) and the data providers in the ECA&D project (http://www.ecad.eu). PMS was supported by the projects IMDROFLOOD – Improving Drought and Flood Early Warning, Forecasting and Mitigation using real-time hydroclimatic indicators (WaterJPI/0004/2014) and HOLMDRIVE – North Atlantic Atmospheric Patterns influence on Western Iberia Climate: From the Lateglacial to the Present [PTDC/CTA-GEO/29029/2017] through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal (FCT). RMT was partially supported by national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal (FCT) under project FireCast (PCIF/GRF/0204/2017). This research was partially funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant agreement No 690462 within the frame of the ERANET “European Research Area for Climate Services –ERA4CS” 2016 Call. AMR was supported by the Scientific Employment Stimulus 2017 from FCT (CEECIND/00027/2017). We thank the Editor and reviewers for their helpful comments on this manuscript. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic Digital.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) Weather and Climate Extremes 26 100224 |
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Open Polar |
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Digital.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) |
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ftcsic |
language |
English |
description |
The summers of 2018 and 2019 were characterized by unusually warm conditions over Europe. Here, we describe the intense heatwaves striking the Iberian Peninsula in early August 2018 and late June 2019. The 2018 episode was relatively short-lived but outstanding in amplitude, particularly in western Iberia. Similar to previous mega-heatwaves, the 2019 event was long-lasting and affected large areas of western and central Europe, including eastern Iberia. During these events, many absolute temperature records were broken in western and eastern Iberia, respectively (some of them standing since 2003). In both cases, a cyclonic circulation off the coast in the northeastern Atlantic and a strong subtropical ridge pattern over the affected area promoted the advection of an anomalously warm air mass. This paper highlights the role of these very warm, stable and dry air intrusions of Saharan origin in the western and eastern Iberia heatwave events. Using a thermodynamical classification based on the geopotential height thickness and potential temperature, we show how the magnitude and poleward extension of these Saharan intrusions were unprecedented in the period since 1948. The relationship between Iberian heatwaves and Saharan warm air intrusions is discussed in the long-term context, showing a closer link in southern sectors of the Peninsula. However, a consistent poleward trend in the latitudinal extension of these subtropical intrusions reveals their increasing relevance for heatwaves in northern sectors of Iberia and western Europe. This overall trend is accompanied by an apparent “see-saw” in the occurrence of subtropical intrusions between eastern and western Iberia on multi-decadal scales. We acknowledge the E-OBS dataset from the EU-FP6 project ENSEMBLES (http://ensembleseu.metoffice.com) and the data providers in the ECA&D project (http://www.ecad.eu). PMS was supported by the projects IMDROFLOOD – Improving Drought and Flood Early Warning, Forecasting and Mitigation using real-time hydroclimatic indicators (WaterJPI/0004/2014) and HOLMDRIVE – North Atlantic Atmospheric Patterns influence on Western Iberia Climate: From the Lateglacial to the Present [PTDC/CTA-GEO/29029/2017] through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal (FCT). RMT was partially supported by national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal (FCT) under project FireCast (PCIF/GRF/0204/2017). This research was partially funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant agreement No 690462 within the frame of the ERANET “European Research Area for Climate Services –ERA4CS” 2016 Call. AMR was supported by the Scientific Employment Stimulus 2017 from FCT (CEECIND/00027/2017). We thank the Editor and reviewers for their helpful comments on this manuscript. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Barriopedro, David García Herrera, Ricardo Sousa, Pedro M. Ramos, Alexandre M. Espírito-Santo, F. Trigo, Ricardo M. |
spellingShingle |
Barriopedro, David García Herrera, Ricardo Sousa, Pedro M. Ramos, Alexandre M. Espírito-Santo, F. Trigo, Ricardo M. Saharan air intrusions as a relevant mechanism for Iberian heatwaves: The record breaking events of August 2018 and June 2019 |
author_facet |
Barriopedro, David García Herrera, Ricardo Sousa, Pedro M. Ramos, Alexandre M. Espírito-Santo, F. Trigo, Ricardo M. |
author_sort |
Barriopedro, David |
title |
Saharan air intrusions as a relevant mechanism for Iberian heatwaves: The record breaking events of August 2018 and June 2019 |
title_short |
Saharan air intrusions as a relevant mechanism for Iberian heatwaves: The record breaking events of August 2018 and June 2019 |
title_full |
Saharan air intrusions as a relevant mechanism for Iberian heatwaves: The record breaking events of August 2018 and June 2019 |
title_fullStr |
Saharan air intrusions as a relevant mechanism for Iberian heatwaves: The record breaking events of August 2018 and June 2019 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Saharan air intrusions as a relevant mechanism for Iberian heatwaves: The record breaking events of August 2018 and June 2019 |
title_sort |
saharan air intrusions as a relevant mechanism for iberian heatwaves: the record breaking events of august 2018 and june 2019 |
publisher |
Elsevier |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10261/207930 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2019.100224 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/690462 Postprint http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2019.100224 Sí doi:10.1016/j.wace.2019.100224 issn: 2212-0947 Weather and Climate Extremes 26 (2019) http://hdl.handle.net/10261/207930 |
op_rights |
openAccess http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2019.100224 |
container_title |
Weather and Climate Extremes |
container_volume |
26 |
container_start_page |
100224 |
_version_ |
1766137153987805184 |