Recent trends in daily temperature extremes over the central Adriatic region of Italy in a Mediterranean climatic context

Abstract

This study provides an assessment of recent changes in near‐surface air temperature over the central Adriatic region of Italy, focusing on extreme events at annual and seasonal scales. It investigates trends in selected indices calculated from quality controlled and homogenized daily temperature data recorded from 1980 to 2012 at 34 meteorological stations distributed over the territory. The results reveal overall warming tendencies, particularly pronounced in spring and summer, with significant increases in the duration of warm spells (WSDI) and in the frequency of warm days (TX90p) and warm nights (TN90p), summer days (SU) and tropical nights (TR). Moreover, cold‐related extremes (cold spell duration (CSDI), cool days (TX10p) and cool nights (TN10p), frost days (FD) and icing days (ID)) show significant reductions, although of lower magnitudes, thus confirming the recent warming over the study domain. Prevalent increasing tendencies are also observed for absolute extreme temperature indices (highest and lowest daily values of maximum and minimum temperatures), but with more mixed and less uniform spatial patterns. Finally, the influence of large‐scale circulation modes on temperature extremes is examined. The results highlight the presence of significant correlations between most of the selected extreme temperature indices and the East‐Atlantic pattern, in particular for the warm season.

Spatio-temporal responses of butterflies to global warming on a Mediterranean island over two decades

“…This trend may be related to the increase in the frequency of extreme climatic events (i.e. unusually high temperatures) observed in other parts of the Mediterranean, especially in the warm season (Caloiero et al ., 2017; Scorzini et al ., 2018).…”

Heat waves in Berlin and Potsdam, Germany – Long‐term trends and comparison of heat wave definitions from 1893 to 2017

“…Second, a strict criterion may lead to statistical difficulties when analysing trends due to many zeros in the time series of HW occurrence (Kiktev et al ., ; Alexander et al ., ; Donat et al ., ). The two definitions were nonetheless included as they are also applied in recently published studies (e.g., Zhu et al ., ; Scorzini et al ., ).…”

Spatio‐temporal analysis for extreme temperature indices over the Levant region

“…In this study, 16 extreme indices derived from daily maximum and minimum temperatures were selected from a total of 27 temperature and precipitation indices recommended by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection Monitoring and Indices (Folland et al, ; Peterson et al, ). These indices can be divided into four categories (Fonseca et al, ; Scorzini et al, ): Absolute extreme temperature (TXx, TXn, TNx, TNn and ETR); Percentile‐based extreme temperature (TX90p, TX10p, TN90p and TN10p); Duration‐based (warm spell duration index [WSDI] and cold spell duration index [CSDI]); Fixed threshold (SU25/30, TR20/25 and frost days). …”

“…In this study, 16 extreme indices derived from daily maximum and minimum temperatures were selected from a total of 27 temperature and precipitation indices recommended by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection Monitoring and Indices (Folland et al, 1999;Peterson et al, 2001). These indices can be divided into four categories (Fonseca et al, 2016;Scorzini et al, 2018):…”