date: Thu Aug 11 12:25:39 2005
from: Phil Jones
subject: Re:
to: "Sari Kovats"
Sari,
We have some boxes on recent extremes around the world.
Here are the two European ones. You can see we have little on
impacts. we are leaving that to WG2.
Hope this is all you need. Lots of press to deal with today re
the Guardian front page.
If you see Jean again, ask her to check her email.
Small problem with an external examination.
Cheers
Phil
Box 3.5.4 Floods in Europe, Summer 2002
A catastrophic flood occurred along several central European rivers in August 2002. The
floods resulting from this extraordinary high precipitation were enhanced by the fact that
the soils were completely saturated and the river water levels were already high because of
previous rain (Ulbrich et al., 2003ab; Rudolf and Rapp, 2003). Hence it was part of a
pattern of weather over an extended period. In the flood, the water levels of the Elbe at
Dresden reached a maximum mark of 9.4 m, which is the highest level since records began in
1275 (Ulbrich et al., 2003a). Some small villages in the Erz Mountains (on tributaries of
the Elbe) were hit by extraordinary flash floods. The river Vltava inundated the city of
Prague before contributing to the Elbe flood. A return period of 500 years was estimated
for the flood levels at Prague (Grollmann and Simon, 2002). The central European floods
were caused by two heavy precipitation episodes. The first, on 67 August was situated
mainly over Lower Austria, the southwestern part of the Czech Republic and southeastern
Germany. The second took place on 1113 August 2002 and most severely affected the Erz
Mountains and western parts of the Czech Republic. A slowly moving low pressure system
moved from the Mediterranean Sea to central Europe on a path over or near the eastern Alps
and led to large-scale, strong and quasi-stationary frontal lifting of air with very high
liquid water content. Additional to this advective rain were convective precipitation
processes (showers and thunderstorms) and a significant orographic lifting (mainly over the
Erz Mountains). A maximum 24-hour-precipitation total of 353 mm was observed at the German
station Zinnwald-Georgenfeld, a new record for Germany. The synoptic situation of the
floods is well known to meteorologists of the region. Similar situations led to the summer
floods of the River Oder in 1997 and the River Vistula in 2001 (Ulbrich et al., 2003b).
Average summer precipitation trends in the region are negative but barely significant
(Schönwiese and Rapp, 1997) and there is no significant trend in flood occurrences of the
Elbe within the last 500 years (Mudelsee et al., 2003). However, the observed increase in
precipitation variability at a majority of German precipitation stations during the last
century (Trömel and Schönwiese, 2005) is indicative of an enhancement of the probability of
both floods and droughts.
Box 3.5.5 Heat Wave in Europe, Summer 2003
The heat wave that affected many parts of Europe during the course of summer 2003 produced
record-breaking temperatures particularly during June and August (Beniston, 2004; Schär et
al., 2004), see Figure 3.8.6. Absolute maximum temperatures exceeded the record
temperatures observed in the 1940s and early 1950s in many locations in France, Germany,
Switzerland and the United Kingdom according to the information supplied by national
weather agencies (WMO, 2003). Gridded instrumental temperatures (from HadCRUT2v for the
region 35-50°N, 0-20°E) show that the summer was the warmest since comparative records
began in 1780 (3.8 K above the 1961-90 average) and 1.4 K warmer than any other summer in
this period (next warmest 1807). Luterbacher et al. (2004) estimate that 2003 is likely to
have been the warmest summer since 1500 based on earlier documentary records. The 2003 heat
wave was associated with a very robust and persistent blocking high pressure system that
some weather services suggested may be a manifestation of an exceptional northward
extension of the Hadley Cell. Already a record month in terms of maximum temperatures, June
exhibited high geopotential values that penetrated northwards towards the British Isles,
with the greatest northward extension and longest persistence of record-high temperatures
observed in August. An exacerbating factor for the temperature extremes was the lack of
precipitation in many parts of western and central Europe, leading to much-reduced soil
moisture and surface evaporation and evapotranspiration, and thus to a strong positive
feedback effect (Beniston and Diaz, 2004).
At 11:55 11/08/2005, you wrote:
Hi Phil
I am sitting in ipcc chapter (health) meeting with Jean Palutikof - and
she mentions you are saying something on climate change and august 2003
europe heatwave. We have a bit to say on this (and about early
casualties of clmate change) and so clearly need to know your
assessment- is it possible to send us this text/paragraph today ? as we
are finalising draft now..
thanks very much
Sari
*******************
Sari Kovats
Lecturer
Public and Environmental Health Research Unit (PEHRU)
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Keppel St, London WC1E 7HT
tel: +44 20 7927 2962
fax: +44 20 7580 4524
sari.kovats@lshtm.ac.uk
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
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