Heat waves: a hot topic in climate change research
Open accessAbstract
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 (USA, Europe, and Australia), and the ecological and medical impacts (drought, urban heat islands, excess hospital admissions, and mortality). An alarming finding is that the limit for survivability may be reached at the end of the twenty-first century in many regions of the world due to the fatal combination of rising temperatures and humidity levels measured as “wet-bulb temperature” (WBT). 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).
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Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
3 of the 66 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Berk, R. A., & Braverman, A. (2025) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2503.16118
Machine Learning for National Mortality Forecasting Using Extreme Heat EventsPreprint
Pandey, A. (2023) · doi:10.36227/techrxiv.23902149.v1
- Authors
- Marx, W., Haunschild, R., & Bornmann, L.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Marx, Werner
- Venue
- Theoretical and Applied Climatology
- Published
- 2021-09-03
- Volume
- 146
- Issue
- 1-2
- Pages
- 781-800
- ISSN
- 0066-6424 (ISSN-L)
- 0177-798X
- 1434-4483
- PMC
- PMC8414451
- OpenAlex
- W3175599063
- Cited by
- 1
- References
- 66
- Citations by year
- 2023: 1
- FWCI
- 0.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Theoretical and Applied Climatology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Climate Change and Health Impacts
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate Change and Environmental Impact
- Keywords
- heat waves, climate change, research trends, wet-bulb temperature, heat-related mortality, hospitalization, urban heat island, drought, citation classics, extreme heat
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