Detection of Intraseasonal Large-Scale Heat Waves: Characteristics and Historical Trends during the Sahelian Spring

Abstract

Abstract In the Sahel very high temperatures prevail in spring, but little is known about heat waves in this region at that time of year. This study documents Sahelian heat waves with a new methodology that allows selecting heat waves at specific spatiotemporal scales and can be used in other parts of the world. It is applied separately to daily maximum and minimum temperatures, as they lead to the identification of distinct events. Synoptic–intraseasonal Sahelian heat waves are characterized from March to July over the period 1950–2012 with the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) gridded dataset. Morphological and temperature-related characteristics of the selected heat waves are presented. From March to July, the further into the season, the shorter and the less frequent the heat waves become. From 1950 to 2012, these synoptic–intraseasonal heat waves do not tend to be more frequent; however, they become warmer, and this trend follows the Sahelian climatic trend. Compared to other commonly used indices, the present index tends to select heat waves with more uniform intensities. This comparison of indices also underlined the importance of the heat index definition on the estimated climatic heat wave trends in a changing climate. Finally, heat waves were identified with data from three meteorological reanalyses: ERA-Interim, MERRA, and NCEP-2. The spreads in temperature variabilities, seasonal cycles, and trends among reanalyses lead to differences in the characteristics, interannual variability, and climatic trends of heat waves, with fewer departures from BEST for ERA-Interim.