After a short respite in the second half of July, Serbia was flooded by another intense one heat wave this summer, it says klima101.rs.
These phenomena are no longer unprecedented in these areas: we are now experiencing several heat waves almost every year.
A few decades ago, such extreme weather conditions were not at all "normal".
The history of summer heat waves in Serbia, made by researchers from the Faculty of Physics in Belgrade, shows that the number of heat waves today is almost four times higher than 50 years ago.
There used to be an average of just over one per summer, and in the last 10 years that average is over 4 heat waves every summer.
What is a "heat" wave?
"Heat wave" means a period of at least three consecutive days during which the daily temperature falls into the "extremely warm" category compared to normal for the period from 1961 to 1990.
This definition is not the same as the one used by RHMZ, which means that it will not "recognize" the same events as heat waves. Among other things, the RHMZ uses a threshold of five days, as well as another normal (for the period from 199 to 2020).
But whatever parameters are used, meteorological measurements show a clear increase in the number of summer heat waves in Serbia, as well as an increase in their length and intensity.
In Serbia, no official, long-term strategy or action plan has yet been adopted on how to adapt the country, and especially the larger cities, to increasingly frequent, longer and more severe heat waves, which are, above all, a consequence of climate change.
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