date: Thu Aug 11 12:25:39 2005
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: 
to: "Sari Kovats" <Sari.Kovats@lshtm.ac.uk>

    Sari,
       We have some boxes on recent extremes around the world.
    Here are the two European ones.  You can see we have little on
    impacts. we are leaving that to WG2.
      Hope this is all you need. Lots of press to deal with today re
    the Guardian front page.
      If you see Jean again, ask her to check her email.
    Small problem with an external examination.
    Cheers
    Phil
   Box 3.5.4         Floods in Europe, Summer 2002

   A catastrophic flood occurred along several central European rivers in August 2002. The
   floods resulting from this extraordinary high precipitation were enhanced by the fact that
   the soils were completely saturated and the river water levels were already high because of
   previous rain (Ulbrich et al., 2003ab; Rudolf and Rapp, 2003). Hence it was part of a
   pattern of weather over an extended period. In the flood, the water levels of the Elbe at
   Dresden reached a maximum mark of 9.4 m, which is the highest level since records began in
   1275 (Ulbrich et al., 2003a). Some small villages in the Erz Mountains (on tributaries of
   the Elbe) were hit by extraordinary flash floods. The river Vltava inundated the city of
   Prague before contributing to the Elbe flood. A return period of 500 years was estimated
   for the flood levels at Prague (Grollmann and Simon, 2002). The central European floods
   were caused by two heavy precipitation episodes. The first, on 67 August was situated
   mainly over Lower Austria, the southwestern part of the Czech Republic and southeastern
   Germany. The second took place on 1113 August 2002 and most severely affected the Erz
   Mountains and western parts of the Czech Republic. A slowly moving low pressure system
   moved from the Mediterranean Sea to central Europe on a path over or near the eastern Alps
   and led to large-scale, strong and quasi-stationary frontal lifting of air with very high
   liquid water content. Additional to this advective rain were convective precipitation
   processes (showers and thunderstorms) and a significant orographic lifting (mainly over the
   Erz Mountains). A maximum 24-hour-precipitation total of 353 mm was observed at the German
   station Zinnwald-Georgenfeld, a new record for Germany. The synoptic situation of the
   floods is well known to meteorologists of the region. Similar situations led to the summer
   floods of the River Oder in 1997 and the River Vistula in 2001 (Ulbrich et al., 2003b).
   Average summer precipitation trends in the region are negative but barely significant
   (Schnwiese and Rapp, 1997) and there is no significant trend in flood occurrences of the
   Elbe within the last 500 years (Mudelsee et al., 2003). However, the observed increase in
   precipitation variability at a majority of German precipitation stations during the last
   century (Trmel and Schnwiese, 2005) is indicative of an enhancement of the probability of
   both floods and droughts.

   Box 3.5.5         Heat Wave in Europe, Summer 2003

   The heat wave that affected many parts of Europe during the course of summer 2003 produced
   record-breaking temperatures particularly during June and August (Beniston, 2004; Schr et
   al., 2004), see Figure 3.8.6. Absolute maximum temperatures exceeded the record
   temperatures observed in the 1940s and early 1950s in many locations in France, Germany,
   Switzerland and the United Kingdom according to the information supplied by national
   weather agencies (WMO, 2003). Gridded instrumental temperatures (from HadCRUT2v for the
   region 35-50N, 0-20E) show that the summer was the warmest since comparative records
   began in 1780 (3.8 K above the 1961-90 average) and 1.4 K warmer than any other summer in
   this period (next warmest 1807).  Luterbacher et al. (2004) estimate that 2003 is likely to
   have been the warmest summer since 1500 based on earlier documentary records. The 2003 heat
   wave was associated with a very robust and persistent blocking high pressure system that
   some weather services suggested may be a manifestation of an exceptional northward
   extension of the Hadley Cell. Already a record month in terms of maximum temperatures, June
   exhibited high geopotential values that penetrated northwards towards the British Isles,
   with the greatest northward extension and longest persistence of record-high temperatures
   observed in August. An exacerbating factor for the temperature extremes was the lack of
   precipitation in many parts of western and central Europe, leading to much-reduced soil
   moisture and surface evaporation and evapotranspiration, and thus to a strong positive
   feedback effect (Beniston and Diaz, 2004).

   At 11:55 11/08/2005, you wrote:

     Hi Phil
     I am sitting in ipcc chapter (health) meeting with Jean Palutikof - and
     she mentions you are saying something on climate change and august 2003
     europe heatwave. We have a bit to say on this (and about early
     casualties of clmate change) and so clearly need to know your
     assessment- is it possible to send us this text/paragraph today ? as we
     are finalising draft now..
     thanks very much
     Sari
     *******************
     Sari Kovats
     Lecturer
     Public and Environmental Health Research Unit (PEHRU)
     London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
     Keppel St, London WC1E 7HT
     tel: +44 20 7927 2962
     fax: +44 20 7580 4524
     sari.kovats@lshtm.ac.uk

   Prof. Phil Jones
   Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
   School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
   University of East Anglia
   Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
   NR4 7TJ
   UK
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