דוקטורנטים מספרים - Yizhak Yosef
Extreme climate change in Israel based on a new data set
Yizhak (Itzik) Yosef
Supervisors: Prof. Pinhas Alpert and Dr. Enric Aguilar (URV, Spain)
My name is Yizhak (Itzik) Yosef and I am exploring climate variability and climate change in our Geophysics Department. Climate trends are studied through the analysis of long-term records, most of which are affected by a number of non-climatic factors (e.g., meteorological station relocation, instrumental modification, environmental changes, etc.). These factors usually have a major impact on time series which compromise their validity to represent climate variability and change. The impact of these factors must be assessed and corrected before doing any furthered calculations. As a result, in my study I am trying to tackle these issues in order to minimize artificial impacts and ultimately generate reliable datasets which are more suitable for climate change analysis. For the first time, a thorough homogenization (detection and correction) routine was developed and implemented in the long-term records. Consequently, a new daily adjusted dataset has been generated, including 34 temperature stations and 60 precipitation stations.
My study examines the 1950-2017 temporal changes in climate extremes in Israel, through the analysis of more than 40 indices. These indices are designed to monitor the changes in the frequency and/or intensity of temperature and precipitation, when most of them relate to the health, water, and agriculture sectors and their requirements.
An unbiased analysis is essential for various economic sectors (such as agriculture, health, water, and energy) in order to properly plan mitigation actions and adaptation to climate change. Additionally, this study not only contributes to our understanding of changes in climate extremes, but also provides a long-term homogenized dataset for a region that suffers from a deficiency of long reliable time series. Considering the urgent need for more climate change studies in the East Mediterranean, these findings provide important insights for future research.
