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Decadal changes of heatwave aspects and heat index over Egypt

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Abstract

This study aims to utilize the existing new and superior heatwave (HW) indices (ClimPACTv2) software to identify the decadal changes of HW aspects (number (HWN), duration (HWD), frequency (HWF), amplitude (HWA), and magnitude (HWM)) over Egypt during the period 1979–2018. The 90th percentile threshold maximum (TX90), minimum (TN90) temperatures, and excess heat factor (EHF) indices were chosen to compute these five HW aspects. The results showed that the lowest decadal summations of HWN (5–20), HWD (20–40 days), and HWF (20–80 days) were detected in the first decade (1979–1988) and increased significantly with positive decadal anomaly trends up to the last decade (2009–2018). Furthermore, Egypt especially the southeastern part subjected to HWA above 300 °C and HWM above 200 °C from both TX90 and TN90 and is confined to the northwestern part with HWA above 140°C2 and HWM exceed 50°C2 from EHF, particularly during the last two decades. Also, the decadal averages of temperature (T, °C) increased gradually over time especially in the southeastern part of Egypt, while the decadal averages of relative humidity (RH, %) nearly remained constant. Therefore, T has a most effective role than RH in determining HI over Egypt during the study period. This creates a relatively tolerable environment for the human body despite the increasing trend over time in the five HW aspects. Thus, all of Egypt falls within the heat index (HI) caution range (26–32 °C) except for the southeastern part which has extreme caution values (32–41 °C) in the last two decades.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this article is included within the article.

Code availability

The ClimPACTv2 software is used to calculate the five heatwave aspects.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Interim (ECMWF/ERA-Interim) for providing the gridded meteorological parameters and to Expert Team on Sector-Specific Climate Indices (ET-SCI) for developing and making available the ClimPACTv2 software to compute the cores set of their defined climate-related.

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  1. Astronomy and Meteorology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, 11884, Egypt

    Mostafa Morsy & Gamal El Afandi

  2. College of Agriculture, Environment and Nutrition Sciences, Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, AL, 36088, USA

    Gamal El Afandi

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  1. Mostafa Morsy
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All authors contributed to the study conception, Idea, and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis, and discussion of results were performed by all authors. The first draft of the manuscript was written and prepared by all authors. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Morsy, M., El Afandi, G. Decadal changes of heatwave aspects and heat index over Egypt. Theor Appl Climatol 146, 71–90 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03721-x

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