Análisis de las olas de calor y variables asociadas en América entre 1951 y 2020

Abstract

Heatwaves are increasing around the globe and have become a major threat to human health, natutal environments and even infrastructure and economy. Regions like Europe or Australia have plenty of research in this area, but the same cannot be said in the case of the Americas. In this study we have analysed heatwaves and their related variables in the american continent between 1951 to 2020 to describe them across all the territory, as well as for finding their trends and relate them to atmospheric conditions. Results have shown that near the equator the climatological means of the number of heatwaves, length of the longest heatwave and heatwave days are larger than in other latitudes and decrease the more we approach the poles. The climatological mean of the heatwave’s intensity has an inverse pattern: the more we move away from the equator, the more intense heatwaves are. The trends have a similar pattern than the climatological means: for the number of heatwaves, lenght of the longest heatwave and heatwave days the trends are more intense near the equator, but the heatwave’s intensity has an inverse pattern. Finally, we have studied the correlations between heatwaves and the 2 m temperature, total precipitation and sea surface temperature. Results have shown that heatwaves are strongly related between total precipitation, sea surface temperature and their respective anomalies, but not so much with the 2 m temperature.