Application of the Humidity index in the Crati River basin (Italy

According to the fifth IPCC report (2013), the forecasted climate changes and extreme events are expected to have a dramatic impact on natural ecosystems and economy in many parts of the world. In this context, the Mediterranean basin has been categorized as a global warming hotspot (Segnalini et al. 2013), in that the area is expected to face particularly high impacts from global warming and climate change and to be most vulnerable to their deleterious effects. Indeed, climate change could increase the risk of future meteorological extremes over large regional areas. For example, extreme heat events, which regularly lead to excess mortality, have been documented worldwide (Ho et al. 2016). An appropriate quantification of human heat exposure is a necessary foundation for studying the effect of heat on human health. Moreover, it is well known that the discomfort that is felt in hot weather depends to a significant degree on air humidity as well as the actual air temperature (Schoen 2005). Among the numerous attempts which have been made to quantify this effect, one of the most used is the application of the humidity index. In this study, an analysis of the temperature and humidity data registered in the largest catchment of the Calabria region (southern Italy) has been performed.