Just a quick look back at the heatwave of July 2023 across the Mediterranean. There was a great deal of interest in this taken by the media in the UKUK The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland., particularly the BBCBBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom, based at Broadcasting House in London. It is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, employing over 22,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 19,000 are in public-sector broadcasting.. As far as I can see it was in my opinion, and that’s what this blog is all about, was sparked off initially by some overzealous reporting by the new (to me) Rome correspondent who was interviewing a selection of British tourists in the centre of Rome in the middle of a hot sunny day. I think this was in reaction to a warning from METEOAMMeteoAM The Italian Meteorological Service is an organizational unit of the Italian Air Force (Servizio Meteorologico dell'Aeronautica Militare) and the national meteorological service in Italy. The weather forecasts and other services serve both the armed forces and the general public. of a severe heatwave dubbed Cerberus on the 13th. If you’ve ever been to Italy or abroad you’ll realise it’s usually a good idea to hide from the sun at this time of the day😉
As far as I can ascertain from observational data there was a short 3 day heatwave (see thermograph below) at Rome’s airport. The trouble with observational data from Italy, as is the case in the UK, you can only access a subset of it, and unfortunately Rome has only one SYNOPSYNOP SYNOP (surface synoptic observations) is a numerical code (called FM-12 by WMO) used for reporting weather observations made by manned and automated weather stations. SYNOP reports are typically mad hourly and consist of groups of numbers (and slashes where data is not available) describing general weather information, such as the temperature, barometric pressure and visibility at a weather station. station situated at the airport on the coast. Because of the HIEUHI Urban Heat Island (UHI) is an urban area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most apparent when winds are weak. UHI is most noticeable during the summer and winter. The main cause of the UHI effect is from the modification of land surfaces I’m sure it was much warmer in the centre of Rome. Not only is there a shortage of observational data for many countries, I challenge you to find any up to date LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. climate data for any of them either. What I mean here by up to date is the LTA for 1991-2020 and not that for 1971-2000 that I have for many stations. You would have thought in these days of “global boiling” the latest climate station for all member countries would be available on the WMOWMO The World Meteorological Organisation is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. website – no it isn’t – and if it wasn’t for Wikipedia, and some nifty parsing, I wouldn’t have collected over 800 LTA records across the world as I have.
I’ve been watching and examining heatwaves closely across the UK and Europe since I retired from the Met OfficeUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in 2011. There are no rules as to what constitutes a heatwave, and therein lies the problem. The UK have one set of rules and every other country has another, and that’s why I argued, mainly to myself because few people read what my views are or give a damn about them either, that instead of a rigid threshold for summer months of X°C for a region, as the UKMOUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy do, a “heatwave day” should be defined on the anomaly of the maximum temperature for each individual station. Over the years I’ve developed software and I usually default to an anomaly of 6°C above the LTA. Personally I think this is much too low for a severe heatwave, and probably should be ~+10°C. The thermograph for Seville shows the extent of the heatwave there using this 6°C rule. Three distinct heatwave days up to the 28th. These anomalies are calculated using the 1981-2010 LTA and not the much colder LTA of 1971-2000.
These thermographs for Rome, Decimomannu and Palermo use the 1971-2000 LTA. and because they anomalies calculated using this slightly colder LTA, the anomalies are much warmer than if I had the ones for 1991-2020. I’ve emailed METEOAM to see if I can obtain them, but am not hopeful I will be able to source the latest climate data. I shouldn’t need to do this, or rely on Wikipedia to supply them, this basic climatological data should be available from the WMO.
That aside the three thermographs do highlight a series of heatwave days, with many as 15 at Decimomannu in Sardinia with an extreme maximum of 46.8°C.
I hope I’ve explained the importance of using the latest LTA for all stations to get an unbiased picture of July’s heatwave. The map below of total heatwave days shows the number of days with a maximum temperature anomaly of 6°C or higher. There’s no doubt that it was hot across a large of southeastern Europe using the +6°C threshold, particularly across parts of northern Algeria and Tunisia. There are what looks like spuriously high anomalies scattered around these are probably caused by out-of-date LTA.
If you look at the next chart this shows the total number of days with anomalies of +10°C or more, and what I maintain are severe heatwave days. Heatwaves in the UK must last at least three consecutive days or more before they can be officially labelled a heatwave, many of the sites in the chart below away from North Africa have one or two, and even if they have more they may not be consecutive.
Looking at reanalysis gridded temperatures and anomalies up to the 26th reveal what I think was really going on. The core of the heat was across the north of Algeria and Tunisia, occasionally some of that very hot air escaped transferring northwards from Africa to affect parts of Sardinia, Sicily, southern Italy, western Greece and the Balkans, and because SSTSST Sea Surface Temperatures temperatures in the Mediterranean were at record levels during July, the sea didn’t cool the air at the surface as much as it could.
The other thing is the media got a hold of this story and ran with it, this was easy to do, because they already had stories about heatwaves in the southern states of America and China, and as the month went on wildfires broke out, and it was also announced that July was very likely to be the record hottest month – a perfect combination for catastrophising the whole thing🥵. For the record heatwaves don’t cause wildfires people do.
