Anomaly Analysis Of The 2010 Russian Heat Wave
Gill, Emily C. 1 ; Chase, Thomas N. 2
1 CIRES
2 CIRES
Extreme warm, localized, temperatures (heat waves) appear to be increasing globally. Specifically, the 2010 Russian heat wave has been a controversial extreme climate event, with record breaking temperatures and catastrophic damage. According to Barriopedro et al. (2010), the 2010 Russian heat wave was the most extreme European history, as far as records date. Our anomaly analysis reveals that portions of the Northern Hemisphere experienced summer temperatures that were more than 3.5 standard deviations away from the average summer climatology (Figure 1).
The cause of this heat wave is still unknown. The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, NOAA (Blunden et al., 2011) initially claimed the heat wave was a result of a long-lived pressure blocking event and natural atmospheric processes. This initial hypothesis has been refuted by Rahmstorf and Coumou (2011), who claim that Monte Carlo statistical methods reveal an 80% likelihood that it the 2010 Russian heat wave was caused by climate change.
Under the supervision of Dr. Thomas N. Chase, research in regards to possible environmental factors causing temperature anomalies was conducted specifically looking into the following variables: soil moisture, specific humidity, long-wave surface incident and vegetation index. This study uses the NCEP/NCAR Global Reanalysis data to investigate trends in the spatial and temporal variability of these factors and possible correlations between them and temperature. Recent findings show a strong connection between increased long-wave surface incident anomalies and increased specific humidity anomalies in the past 10 years or so. Figure 2 shows similar increasing trends, particularly in the last five years, in the portion of the Northern Hemisphere experiencing extreme temperature, incident longwave radiation, and specific humidity. These trends in these variables are consistent with proposed predictions of amplified positive hydrologic feedback cycle under recent climate change. Furthermore, Figure 3 reveals similarities in the regions that are becoming more variable in these three factors from 1979 to present.
Barriopedro, D., Fischer, E.M., Luterbacher, J., Trigo, R.M., Garcia-Herrera, R., 2011, The hot summer of 2010: redrawing the temperature map of Europe: Science, v. 332(220).
Blunden, J., D. S. Arndt, M. O. Baringer, 2011, State of the Climate in 2010: Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., v. 92, p. S2-S236.
Rahmstorf, S., and Coumou, D., 2011, Increase of extreme events in a warming world: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.