Mega-heatwave temperatures due to combined soil desiccation and atmospheric heat accumulation

Extreme heatwave events are expected to become increasingly common as a consequence of climate change. Analyses of the 2003 and 2010 mega-heatwaves in Europe suggest that atmospheric boundary-layer dynamics and feedbacks with the drying land surface lead to the build-up of heat in the atmosphere and extremely hot temperatures.

[1]  G. Meehl,et al.  More Intense, More Frequent, and Longer Lasting Heat Waves in the 21st Century , 2004, Science.

[2]  H. Tennekes,et al.  A Model for the Dynamics of the Inversion Above a Convective Boundary Layer , 1973 .

[3]  F. Guichard,et al.  Understanding the Daily Cycle of Evapotranspiration: A Method to Quantify the Influence of Forcings and Feedbacks , 2010 .

[4]  E. Fischer,et al.  A Review of the European Summer Heat Wave of 2003 , 2010 .

[5]  Robert C. Wolpert,et al.  A Review of the , 1985 .

[6]  Tao Zhang,et al.  Was there a basis for anticipating the 2010 Russian heat wave? , 2011 .

[7]  Kevin E. Trenberth,et al.  Climate extremes and climate change: The Russian heat wave and other climate extremes of 2010 , 2012 .

[8]  Stefan Rahmstorf,et al.  A decade of weather extremes , 2012 .

[9]  S. Seneviratne,et al.  Contrasting response of European forest and grassland energy exchange to heatwaves , 2010 .

[10]  E. Fischer,et al.  Soil Moisture–Atmosphere Interactions during the 2003 European Summer Heat Wave , 2007 .

[11]  M. Friedl,et al.  Convective Planetary Boundary Layer Interactions with the Land Surface at Diurnal Time Scales: Diagnostics and Feedbacks , 2007 .

[12]  S. Seneviratne,et al.  Investigating soil moisture-climate interactions in a changing climate: A review , 2010 .

[13]  M. Castro,et al.  The Iberian Peninsula thermal low , 2003 .

[14]  R.A.M. de Jeu,et al.  Soil moisture‐temperature coupling: A multiscale observational analysis , 2012 .

[15]  E. Fischer,et al.  Contribution of land‐atmosphere coupling to recent European summer heat waves , 2007 .

[16]  S. Seneviratne,et al.  Land–atmosphere coupling and climate change in Europe , 2006, Nature.

[17]  Sonia I. Seneviratne,et al.  Observational evidence for soil-moisture impact on hot extremes in southeastern Europe , 2011 .

[18]  M. Blackburn,et al.  Factors contributing to the summer 2003 European heatwave , 2004 .

[19]  Pascal Yiou,et al.  Asymmetric European summer heat predictability from wet and dry southern winters and springs , 2012 .

[20]  E. Fischer,et al.  Consistent geographical patterns of changes in high-impact European heatwaves , 2010 .

[21]  N. Verhoest,et al.  El Niño-La Niña cycle and recent trends in continental evaporation , 2014 .

[22]  R. Vautard,et al.  The simulation of European heat waves from an ensemble of regional climate models within the EURO-CORDEX project , 2013, Climate Dynamics.

[23]  D. Lüthi,et al.  The role of increasing temperature variability in European summer heatwaves , 2004, Nature.

[24]  J. Vilà‐Guerau de Arellano,et al.  Analytical Solution for the Convectively-Mixed Atmospheric Boundary Layer , 2013, Boundary-Layer Meteorology.

[25]  Ricardo García-Herrera,et al.  The Hot Summer of 2010: Redrawing the Temperature Record Map of Europe , 2011, Science.

[26]  S. Seneviratne,et al.  Hot days induced by precipitation deficits at the global scale , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[27]  T. Holmes,et al.  Global land-surface evaporation estimated from satellite-based observations , 2010 .

[28]  J. Thepaut,et al.  The ERA‐Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system , 2011 .

[29]  R. Jeu,et al.  Multisensor historical climatology of satellite‐derived global land surface moisture , 2008 .

[30]  Lisa V. Alexander,et al.  Climate science: Extreme heat rooted in dry soils , 2011 .

[31]  Eduardo Zorita,et al.  European climate response to tropical volcanic eruptions over the last half millennium , 2007 .

[32]  J. Lelieveld,et al.  Modelled suppression of boundary-layer clouds by plants in a CO2-rich atmosphere , 2012 .