Towards a more comprehensive assessment of the intensity of historical European heat waves (1979–2019)

Europe has been affected by record-breaking heat waves in recent decades. Using station data and a gridded reanalysis as input, four commonly used wave indices, the magnitude index daily (HWMId), excess factor (EHF), wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) universal thermal climate (UTCI), are computed. The extremeness of historical European between 1979 2019 using indices different metrics is ranked. A normalisation to enable comparison introduced. Additionally, method quantify influence input parameters on spatio-temporal behaviour assessed spatial–temporal tracking. areal extent, large-scale intensity duration visualized bubble plots. As expected, explains largest variance all but humidity nearly important WBGT wind speed plays substantial role UTCI. While 2010 Russian far most extreme event normalized 2018 was comparable size for EHF, Interestingly, well-known 2003 central only fifth tenth strongest cumulative UTCI, respectively. June July were very intense, short-lived, thus not belonging top when extent taken into account. Overall, proposed multi-metric assessment allow more robust description their will be helpful assess worldwide projections.