Research on heat waves (periods of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity) is a newly emerging research topic within the field of climate change research with high relevance for the whole of society. In this study, we analyzed the rapidly growing scientific literature dealing with heat waves. No summarizing overview has been published on this literature hitherto. We developed a suitable search query to retrieve the relevant literature covered by the Web of Science (WoS) as complete as possible and to exclude irrelevant literature (n = 8,011 papers). The time-evolution of the publications shows that research dealing with heat waves is a highly dynamic research topic, doubling within about 5 years. An analysis of the thematic content reveals the most severe heat wave events within the recent decades (1995 and 2003), the cities and countries/regions affected (United States, Europe, and Australia), and the ecological and medical impacts (drought, urban heat islands, excess hospital admissions, and mortality). Risk estimation and future strategies for adaptation to hot weather are major political issues. We identified 104 citation classics which include fundamental early works of research on heat waves and more recent works (which are characterized by a relatively strong connection to climate change).
翻译:热浪研究(超热天气时期,可能伴随着高湿度)是气候变化研究领域一个新出现的研究课题,对整个社会都具有高度相关性。在本研究中,我们分析了有关热浪的迅速增长的科学文献,迄今没有发表关于这一文献的概述。我们开发了适当的搜索查询,以尽可能完整地检索科学网(WoS)所涵盖的相关文献,并排除相关文献(n=8 011论文)。出版物的时序显示,热浪研究是一个高度动态的研究课题,大约5年内翻了一番。对专题内容的分析揭示了近几十年(1995年和2003年)内最严重的热浪事件、受影响的城市和国家/区域(美国、欧洲和澳大利亚)以及生态和医学影响(干旱、城市热岛、超量住院和死亡率),风险评估和今后适应热气候的战略是主要的政治问题。我们确定了104种引用经典,其中包括对热浪和较近期工程的基本早期研究研究(与气候变化的联系相对密切)。