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Abstract: The extremely warm summer of 2003, with its August heat wave, is taken as a prototype of future summer weather in Europe. The stagnant circulation led to accumulation of heat and pollutants, increased forest fires, and induced high ozone and particulate matter levels. After a description of the meteorological conditions encountered, we review here the effects of the heat-wave meteorology on photochemistry, wild fires, and particulate matter, at the continental and urban scales. We discuss the extent to which this special summer can be taken for projecting air quality in a future warmer climate, especially in the perspective of changes in regional and global emissions. For ozone, the effect of regional reduction of emissions will dominate over summer climate change, but the increase in baseline ozone should significantly raise the mean ozone levels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The main features of the heat wave that has affected western Europe during the summer 2003 are first recalled, with particular concern to analogies and differences with previous warm-summer episodes. The skills of the various operational and pre-operational seasonal forecasting models in use at that time are evaluated. None of them has been able to consistently forecast the heat wave three month in advance. The meteorological and climatic situation prevailing during spring 2003 is then analysed. A strong sea-surface-temperature (SST) anomaly is found to have developed over North Atlantic a few months before the heat wave. The particular mechanism at work to explain the occurrence of the heat wave is not a ‘simple downwind influence’ of the SST anomaly. It very likely involves complex ocean–atmosphere interaction phenomena of a kind that is not properly taken into account in today''s seasonal forecasting models. To cite this article: J.-C. André et al., C. R. Geoscience 336 (2004). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]