engleski

HEAT WAVE PROTECTION WITHIN METEOALARM IN CROATIA

A large number of human sufferings as a consequence of summer heat and heat waves in the recent past, requires continuous research on this topic in order to improve heat warning protocol and human health protection. The current Croatian heat wave alert system is carried out under the Ministry of health which has established working group for heat health protection. According to the Protocol, which is a part of the Action Plan for heat protection in Croatia, Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service (DHMZ) is issuing warnings regarding different levels of heat threat. Warnings are issued for eight different areas in Croatia which are defined as to cover all climate characteristics, but also to include available mortality data sets needed to define moderate, high, and very high heat risk. As Croatia is a small but geographically quite diverse country, there is a need and interest in defining criteria for issuing warnings on more detailed spatial scale. The problem is that mortality data are not available on the same spatial scale and for all needed areas. To overcome that problem, DHMZ is working on introducing the new heat alarm system, based on different thresholds for extreme temperatures. With the new algorithm we want to cover 20 counties, but also daily, seasonal and annual temporal variability. In this work we are testing the new algorithm on the summer period (1st June to 31st August) for three selected years (2003, 2019 and 2021) for current eight locations, by comparing the warnings (start date, end date, risk level) that would issue the current vs. the new algorithm. The new algorithm hits well the term of the first heat wave, but underestimates the total number of heat waves issued by the current algorithm. On the other side, the advantage of the new algorithm is that it can issue heat warning throughout the whole year. Nevertheless, before implementing it into the heat wave warning protocol, the new algorithm requires further research.

heat wave, Meteoalarm, health

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