Workflow for heatwave risk assessment under climate scenarios

A heatwave is a prolonged period of abnormally hot weather. There are different approaches to defining a heatwave. But in general, a heatwave is determined using thresholds for air temperature and its persistency (minimum duration as a number of days). The most common definition of a heatwave is the occurrence of multiple consecutive days with the maximum air temperature over a certain threshold. In some methodologies thresholds are also defined for the minimum air temperature.

The heatwave workflow focuses on estimating the frequency of heatwave events for the present and the future climate based on the EURO-CORDEX climate scenarios data (dataset with 12 km spatial resolution). The workflow aids the user in understanding the effect of climate change on the occurrence of heatwaves under different climate change scenarios (RCPs) within a user-defined region in Europe. This data is obtained for yearly temporal resolutions. Changes to heatwave duration (total number of days) are also analyzed. This workflow also includes an analysis of the relative change in heatwave occurrence at the regional level. It provides a methodology for combining the magnitude of this relative change with data on vulnerable populations.

The risk to the vulnerable population due to heatwaves can be analyzed using the heatwave hazard data in combination with the information on the distribution of the vulnerable population groups. In this workflow, we demonstrate such analysis using high-resolution satellite-derived (measured) data on heatwaves (30m spatial resolution) with the combination of the distribution of the vulnerable groups (100m spatial resolution). In this workflow, you will find instructions on where to find these data and how to analyze this information.