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Since our climate is in a rapid changing phase, it is crucial to get information about the regional patterns of basic climatic parameters and indices. The EURO-CORDEX project provides high-quality regional climate model outputs, but these raw datasets are not convenient for the application in wider geoscience studies. According to the authors' knowledge, there is a lack of published spatial information about basic climate parameters and indices in Central Europe and especially in the broader Carpathian region therefore the basic aim of this study to fill this gap. The study presents the future trends in daily air temperature and precipitation and various climatic indices in the broader Carpathian Basin region during the 21st century. The indices are calculated using multi-model average temperature and precipitation data from EURO-CORDEX model simulations for the future time periods (2021-2050, 2071-2100) and emission scenarios (RCP4.5, RCP8.5). The indices present the future trends of the heat load, energy demand as well as extreme precipitation and drought characteristics. Based on the results the temperature increase is obvious and the heat load and energy demand quantifying indices follow the temperature trend. However, the trend is difficult to evaluate in the case of precipitation. The changes in the precipitation and the related indices can be considered small and appear within the regions. The future changes are the most considerable in the Carpathian Basin, but the entire examined region faces crucial changes in the following decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates the pattern of a night-time climate index, namely the tropical nights (Tmin = 20 °C) during the 21st century in several different sized cities in the Carpathian Basin. For the modelling, MUKLIMO_3 microclimatic model and the cuboid statistical method were applied. In order to ensure the proper representation of the thermal characteristics of an urban landscape, the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) system was used as landuse information. For this work, LCZ maps were produced using WUDAPT methodology. The climatic input of the model was the Carpatclim dataset for the reference period (1981-2010) and EURO-CORDEX regional model outputs for the future time periods (2021-2050, 2071-2100) and emission scenarios (RCP4.5, RCP8.5). As results show, there would be a remarkable increase in the number of tropical nights along the century, and there is a clearly recognizable increase owing to urban landform. In the near past, the number of the index was 6-10 nights higher in the city core than the rural area where the number of this index was negligible. In the near future this urban-rural trend is the same, however, there is a slight increase (2-5 nights) in the index in city cores. At the end of the century, the results of the two emission scenarios become distinct. In the case of RCP4.5 the urban values are about 15-25 nights, what is less stressful compared to the 30-50 nights according to RCP8.5. The results clearly highlight that the effect of urban climate and climate change would cause serious risk for urban dwellers, therefore it is crucial to perform climate mitigation and adaptation actions on both global and urban scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the spatial pattern of Urban Heat Island (UHI) and its dynamical background are analysed. Furthermore, we examined the annual, seasonal and diurnal characteristics of UHI according to the Local Climate Zones (LCZs). The analysis was performed using one year (between June 2014 and May 2015) dataset from the measurement network of Szeged (Hungary). This network consists of 24 stations measuring air temperature and relative humidity. In the installation of the network the representativeness played an important role in order to that the stations represents their LCZs. We examined the thermal reactions during average and ideal conditions using the so-called weather factor. Our results show that the UHI is stronger in the compactly built zones and there are great differences between the zones. The greatest values appear in summer, while the difference is small in winter. The UHI starts to develop at sunset and exists through approximately 9-10 hours and differences are about 2 °C larger in case of ideal days, when the conditions (wind, cloud cover) are appropriate to the strong development of the UHI. The cooling rates show that the first few hours after sunset are determinative for the developing of UHI. In addition, the effect of UHI on annual mean temperature is also significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper evaluates the alteration of certain night-time climate indices namely warm nights (Tmin > 17 °C) and tropical nights (Tmin ≥20 °C) during the 21st century in the city of Szeged. This examination was performed within the framework of a project founded by International Visegrad Fund, where the change of more climate indices were examined in several Central European cities. In this study the MUKLIMO_3 microclimatic model was used, which ensured the modelling of the local scale processes in the examined area. In the model for the land use we applied the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) system. In order to analyze longer periods the cuboid method was applied, which is a dynamical-statistical downscaling technique. We calculated the indices for 1981-2010 based on measurements and for 2021-2050 and 2071-2100 from the EURO-CORDEX datasets. In this study we present the results of Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios namely RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. Our results show that highest values appear in the city centre and the number of the days clearly increases in the 21st century especially according to scenario RCP 8.5. The values depend on the built-up types and there are more days towards to the densely built-up LCZs. Moreover, considering the relative changes of the zones, larger values appear in sparsely built-up zones and natural surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]