Abstract
The air temperature extremes in the southern Balkans and the synoptic conditions that favor their occurrence are examined for the 40-year period 1979–2018, with the use of the ERA5 database. The 12UTC and 06UTC daily 0.25°×0.25° surface temperature values are used for the identification of the extreme high and extreme low temperature days, respectively. These days are defined based on the temperature anomalies, i.e., the deviations of the air temperature from the 40-year long-term averages for the corresponding dates of the year. A methodology scheme including the data reduction and classification techniques, factor analysis and cluster analysis, is applied on the temperature anomaly and atmospheric circulation data, leading to the classification of the extremely high/low temperature days into groups according to the prevalent synoptic conditions. According to the results, extreme high temperatures occur more frequently during summer and their frequency increases during the 40-year period. Their occurrence is attributed to the intense daytime radiative heating associated with sunny and dry conditions and the advection of warm air masses from North Africa. On the other hand, the occurrence of extreme low temperature days shows a negative frequency trend during the 40-year period, and it is connected to the intense radiative cooling of the earth’s surface and the advection of cold air masses from northeastern Europe.
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Acknowledgement is made for the use of ECMWF computing and archive facilities in this research, generated using Copernicus Climate Change Service information.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by D Farmakidis. The first draft of the manuscript was written by CJ Lolis and G Kotsias. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Lolis, C.J., Kotsias, G. & Farmakidis, D. A 40-year climatology of air temperature extremes in the southern Balkans based on the ERA5 database. Theor Appl Climatol 149, 355–377 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04053-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-04053-0