Sector | Heat stress and human comfort | ||||||
Description | Tropical nights are nights when minimum 2 m air temperature remains greater than 20° C (e.g. Fischer and Schär 2010). | ||||||
End User | General public | ||||||
Calculation method | |||||||
ID | Title | Period | Statistical processing | Unit | Threshold | Comment | |
tropicalnights | Tropical Nights | yearly | Number of days with daily minimum temperature greater than 20°C. | nights | 20°C | ||
Provenance | Computed by the HARMONIE model. | ||||||
Validation | The simulations made by HARMONIE-AROME in Urban SIS has been validated against observations in Urban SIS deliverable 5.1, where an overview is given in Table 4. | ||||||
Calculation caveats |
Spatial representation: S1 |
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Motivation |
This indicator has been shown, in combination with hot days (indicator id: hotdays), to explain temporal and spatial variance of excess mortality during recent European heatwaves (e.g. Fischer and Schär 2010). The temperature threshold used to identify a tropical night that is used follows EEA (2009). The indicator “Tropical nights” is meant as an intuitive way to present high temperatures occurrences for the public. |
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Experience user | |||||||
References |
EEA Report No 5/2009. Ensuring quality of life in Europe’s cities and towns – tackling the environmental challenges driven by European and global change. ISSN 1725-9177 Fischer EM, C Schär 2010: Consistent geographical patterns of changes in high-impact European heatwaves. Nature Geoscience 3.6: 398-403. |