Quantifying impact-relevant heatwave durations

Abstract Heatwaves are weather hazards that can influence societal and natural systems. Recently, heatwaves have increased in frequency, duration, and intensity, and this trend is projected to continue as a consequence of climate change. The study of heatwaves is hampered by the lack of a common definition, which limits comparability between studies. This applies in particular to the considered time scale for utilised metrics. Here, we study which durations of heatwaves are most impact-relevant for various types of impacts. For this purpose, we analyse societal metrics related to health (heat-related hospitalisations, mortality) and public attention (Google trends, news articles) in Germany. Country-averaged temperatures are calculated for the period of 2010–2019 and the warmest periods of all time scales between 1 and 90 days are selected. Then, we assess and compare the societal response during those periods to identify the heatwave durations with the most pronounced impacts. Note that these durations are based on average temperatures across the given time frame while individual days may be less warm. The results differ slightly between the considered societal metrics but indicate overall that heatwaves induce the strongest societal response at durations between 2 weeks and 2 months for Germany. Finally, we show that heatwave duration affects the societal response independent of, and additionally to, heatwave temperatures. This finding highlights the relevance of making informed choices on the considered time scale in heatwave analyses. The approach we introduce here can be extended to other societal indices, countries, and hazard types to reveal more meaningful definitions of climate extremes to guide future research on these events.