Detection of variations in precipitation at different time scales of twentieth century at three locations of Italy

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Increasing Heatwave Hazards in the Southeastern European Union Capitals

Heatwaves (HWs) are one of the “natural” hazards with the greatest impact worldwide in terms of mortality and economic losses, and their effects may be exacerbated in large urban areas. For these reasons, more detailed analyses of urban HW trends represent a priority that cannot be neglected. In this study, HW trends were investigated during the warmest period of the year (May–September) by using a slightly improved version of the EuroHEAT HW definition applied on long meteorological time-series (36-year period, 1980–2015) collected by weather stations located in the capitals of the 28 European Union member countries. Comparisons between two 18-year sub-periods (1980–1997 vs. 1998–2015) were carried out and a city-specific HW hazard index (HWHI), accounting for the main HW characteristics, was proposed. Most of the capitals revealed significant positive trends of the majority of HW hazard characteristics and substantial HWHI increases were observed during the sub-period 1998–2015, especially in the central-eastern and southeastern cities. Conversely, minor HWHI increases were observed in most of the northern capitals and opposite situations were even observed in several northern and especially southwestern cities. The results of this study represent a support for planning urban HW-related mitigation and adaptation strategies with the priority given to the southeastern cities

To Franco Scaramuzzi on the occasion of his eightieth birthday

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Weather and climate monitoring for food risk management

AbstractFood insecurity represents one of the main indicators of the poverty level of a country and can breed a strong dependence on foreign aid with a strong slowdown of the national economy. African arid and semi‐arid areas are characterised by food precariousness and their agricultural activity is strongly dependent on the extreme climatic conditions that affect the available water supply. This situation has led to the need to develop new tools for the prediction and the management of crisis. The characterisation of climate and the identification of anomalies, the monitoring of weather conditions and their influence on crops, short and medium range weather forecasts and long‐term climate predictions are among the most powerful tools to predict, in as short a time as possible, crises due to the absence or delay of rainfall season. Meteorological information can also be used as an input to agrometeorological models applied for crisis prevention or for its management during the growing season when the crops are already present. In this paper, a review of these tools is made and some operational products presented. Copyright © 2006 Royal Meteorological Societ