Recommended citation: Pérez-Alarcón, A, Sorí, R., Stojanovic, M., Vázquez, M., Trigo, R.M., Nieto, R., Gimeno, L. (2024). The first climatological study of heat waves in Cuba. V Congress in Tropical Meteorology. Convención TROPICO 2024. Havana, Cuba. 21-25 October 2024.

Abstact

Heat waves (HWs) are one of the most relevant climate extreme events due to their impacts on people, ecosystem and productive activities and their increase in intensity and frequency in the last years. This work performed the first climatological analysis of HWs in Cuba from 1951 to 2023 using maximum and minimum air temperature from the ERA-Land reanalysis. By examining separately these hot extremes in the western (WR), central (CR) and eastern (ER) regions of Cuba, we detected 393 events, accounting for 224 during the dry season and 169 in the rainy season. While the ER is the hottest one, the highest frequency of HW was detected in WR, especially in the eastern of the Havana-Matanzas plain and to the north and west of the provinces of Cienfuegos and Villa Clara. In addition, our analysis found a mean duration of a HW of ~4.9 and ~5.3 days in the dry and rainy seasons, respectively. Likewise, we detected a statistically significant (p<0.05) upward trend in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent and yearly number of days under such hot extremes. Furthermore, based on the Lagrangian heat tracking analysis, the sensible heating mainly came from local sources, followed by the advected heat from upwind sources. In summary, this study contributes to mitigation and adaptation efforts in the context of climate change.