Nouveaux Memoires De La Societe Belge De Geologie De Paleontologie Et Dhydrologie Bruxelles

Author : Dario Camuffo
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9401003718
Total Pages : 410 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (1 download)

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Download or read book Improved Understanding of Past Climatic Variability from Early Daily European Instrumental Sources written by Dario Camuffo and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate can be defined as an ensemble of many weather phenomena. Clima tologists often use the mean (conventionally the monthly and annual mean) of weather-related parameters to describe climate. The mean value, however, is not all the climate. Climatic changes might occur if certain aspects of the distribution of extreme values change, while the mean does not. Katz and Brown (1992), for example, show from a theoretical viewpoint that in a changing climate, extreme values are determined more by changes in variability than changes in the mean. Possible changes in extreme event frequency receive considerable attention along with the global warming, because extremes directly impact human society and the economy. For most societally sensitive extremes and related changes in their vari ability, an analysis based on daily data becomes necessary. This paper considers two aspects (relative and absolute values) of extreme temperatures on a daily basis. We do not consider spells of extreme days, periods which will likely have greater socio-economic and health impacts (Kalkstein et al., 1996; Wagner, 1999), than individual extreme days.