Journal des sciences de la Terre et du changement climatique

Abstrait

Heat Waves Affecting Weather and Climate over Albania

Tanja Porja

Many scientists investigate climate changes and try to predict changes up to several years or decades and the best predictions considerate hindsight analyses and can be assessed on them. Good results are taken for changes on annual mean air temperatures or rainfall meanwhile not enough studies were done about the past and present events of extreme weather. In order to improve the future prediction, a better understanding of extreme weather is needed. It can be done by studying recent events and compare them with similar past events. Generally, extreme weather includes severe or weather at the extremes of their historical distribution. The most used extreme weather definition is based on extreme weather events distribution where extreme events occur at 5% or less of the time. During the last decades, extreme weather often faced Albania and many countries. A less known of extreme weather is the heat wave phenomena and analyses of it were done in this study over two important Albanian cities. As a first step, periods of heat waves were distinguished from the daily temperature records and then analyses of atmospheric patterns associated were done to point out the shapes of air circulation which bring hot and moist air toward Albania. Then, analyses and comparison of atmospheric patterns were done for the days when air temperatures exceed historical records and the results will be used as an attempt for extreme temperature prediction in the short range forecasting