Study of the heat wave of the summer 2003 at the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula
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M. Castellà [1] ; M. Brunet [1]
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[1] Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Tarragona, España
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- Localización: Tethys : revista meteorología y climatología mediterránea, ISSN 1139-3394, Nº. 8, 2011, págs. 89-99
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The heat wave that affected much of Europe during the summer of 2003 also had a strongimpact on the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula (IP). The aim of this study is toplace the instrumental context and determine the exceptional or unexceptional nature of the heatepisode which occurred between June and August 2003 by analyzing a series of maximum andminimum temperatures adjusted to the daily scale, corresponding to 5 stations distributed alongthe Mediterranean coast of the IP, located from north to south in: Barcelona, Val`encia, Alacant,Murcia and M ́alaga. The heat wave has been placed in the instrumental context (1900-2007)and both the extreme and average values of the temperature of the summer of 2003 have beenanalyzed at a regional level and by individual weather stations. The results indicate that theepisode of 2003 can be considered extreme and unusual, with a real average temperature forJune-July-August that is above the 1900-2007 average by 3.3◦C, which exceeds the previousrecord, from 2001, by 1.6◦C. It should be noted, however, that the episode was more pronouncedin the north than in the south of the Mediterranean coast of the IP.
