STOCHASTIC BEHAVIOUR OF HEAT WAVES AND TEMPERATURE IN HUNGARY

One of the adverse effects of climate change is the proliferation of heat waves.Our investigations show that according to the most widely accepted climate change scenarios heat waves are expected to be essentially longer and hotter than in the past.It might happen that events we now define as heat waves last through entire summer.Although it will not be general, the length and intensity of present heat waves could also multiply.Based on data provided by some global circulation models, we might be face an event that exceeds the hottest heat waves of the 20 th century by as much as 12°C.This study also offers a survey of the methodology of heat wave definition.Besides traditional calculations, we present two unconventional methods by introducing minimum and maximum temperature heat waves.We show in what points this approach is different from those usually adopted and what extra information it may offer.As an extension of the usual studies, with considering the length of events, we analyse the development of two variants -temperature and duration -and, as a result, classify the extreme heat events according to both length and intensity.