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Trends in heat wave related indices in Pakistan

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DOI: 10.1007/s00477-018-1605-2

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ORIGINAL PAPER

Trends in heat wave related indices in Pakistan

Najeebullah Khan1,2 • Shamsuddin Shahid1 • Tarmizi Ismail1 • Kamal Ahmed1,2 • Nadeem Nawaz2

Ó Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
Increased frequency and severity of heat wave is one of the immediate and certain impacts of rising temperature due to
global warming. A number of heat wave related indices considering both daily maximum and minimum temperature are
proposed in this paper to assess the changes in different characteristics of heat waves in Pakistan, which is one of the most
vulnerable countries of the world to extreme temperature. Gridded daily temperature dataset of Princeton’s Global
Meteorological Forcing for the period 1948–2010 was used for this purpose. The results revealed daily maximum tem-
perature more than 95-th percentile threshold for consecutive 5 days or more can well reconstruct the spatial pattern of heat
wave in Pakistan. The results revealed that intense heat waves in Pakistan are mostly occurred in the southwest. However,
heat waves are most devastating when those occur in highly populated southeast region. It was found that major heat waves
in Pakistan occurred in 1952, 1978, 1984, 1988, 2002, 2006, 2009 and 2010 which affected 55.7, 71.1, 74.0, 72.3, 48.9,
60.6, 41.8 and 82.9% population respectively. The trends in heat wave indices revealed significant increases in the indices
calculated based on both the maximum and minimum temperatures. Duration of heat wave was found to increase at a rate
of 0.71 days/decade, while the duration and affected area having both maximum and minimum temperature above 95-th
percentiles are found to increase at a rate of 0.95 days/decade and 1.36% of total area of Pakistan per decade respectively.

Keywords Heat wave  Temperature extremes  Gridded temperature data  Modified Mann–Kendall trend test 
Pakistan

1 Introduction warming. Heat waves are directly related to public health

A number of heat wave indices considering both daily
maximum and minimum temperature were used in this
study to assess the changes in different characteristics of
the heat wave. Increasing frequency and intensity of heat
waves at global (Meehl and Tebaldi 2004; Perkins and
Alexander 2013; Tao et al. 2014; Abaurrea et al. 2015;
Perkins 2015; Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Gibson 2017) and
regional scale (Robinson 2001; Anderson and Bell 2011,
Miralles et al. 2014; Nairn and Fawcett 2014) have been
reported with the increases in temperature due to global
& Najeebullah Khan
najeebmarri@gmail.com
1 reference to human impacts (Robinson 2001; Meehl and
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
(UTM), 81310 Johor Baharu, Malaysia
2
Faculty of Water Resource Management, Lasbela University
of Agriculture Water and Marine Sciences (LUAWMS),
Uthal, Balochistan 90150, Pakistan
(Kovats and Kristie 2006; Buscail et al. 2012), agricultural
production (De Bono et al. 2004; Teixeira et al. 2013),
ecological health (Hallegatte et al. 2007) and environ-
mental condition (Stedman 2004), and therefore, losses of
lives, damages to economy and degradation of people’s
livelihood (Masood et al. 2015; Kim et al. 2017; Rauf et al.
2017). Therefore, assessment of spatial and temporal
characteristics of heat waves and their changes is very
important for understanding the geographical distribution
of vulnerable zones and planning adaptation and mitigation
to build resilience to increasing heat waves.
There is no universal definition of the heat wave. It is
usually defined base on the area, location and time period
(You et al. 2017). Most of the definitions are based on
human health outcomes where a threshold is defined with
Tebaldi 2004; Patz et al. 2005; Fischer and Schär 2010;
Anderson and Bell 2011; Cao et al. 2018; Cheng et al.
2018). Regression equations are generally used to relate a
combination of weather elements with the human sensation

123

at city or regional scales for defining heat wave (Wood
2006; Peng et al. 2011; Buscail et al. 2012; Otto et al. 2012;
Nissan et al. 2017). One of the major limitations of using
heat wave definition based on human impacts is that
assessment of the changes in heat wave across time or
comparison of the spatial variability of severity at national
level is not possible as such definitions are based on a
baseline climate which cannot be used to generate a
complete time series of events for trend analysis (Nairn and
Fawcett 2013).
As an alternation, heat wave is also defined as excessive
sensible heat accumulates that results a thermal load (You
et al. 2017; Sanderson et al. 2017). In such definitions, heat
waves are identified purely by thermal load, evolving in
time and space, regardless of location (Nairn and Fawcett
2013). Human health considerations under this approach
are taken into account as a secondary step after establish-
ment of the potential magnitude of heat wave. As this type
of definition does not depend on time and space, it can be
used for assessment of spatial variability of heat waves at
national or regional levels, determination of trends in heat
wave characteristics and visualize the area affected by
different heat wave events (Nairn and Fawcett 2013, 2014;
Sanderson et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2017; Chen and Li
2017).
Based on thermal load concept, heat wave has been
defined using different temperature thresholds for different
geographical regions (Pezza et al. 2012; WMO 2015;
Saeed et al. 2017; Perkins and Alexander 2013; Nairn and
Fawcett 2014). However, a common threshold for all
geographic or climatic regions is not applicable. For
example, WMO (2015) definition shows very long heat
wave covering a large area in arid and semi-arid regions. A
large areal extent of heat wave can also be observed when
90-th percentile of maximum temperature is considered as
threshold following the definition of Pezza et al. (2012).
This emphasizes the need for defining heat wave for the
region of interest. In the present study, heat wave was
defined based on thermal load estimated using percentile
threshold. The threshold for which the heat wave-affected
area matches with the historically considered heat wave-
prone area was used to define the heat wave. The historical
and cultural understanding or general conception of heat
wave affected area have been used in defining the heat
wave in a number of studies (Nairn and Fawcett
2013, 2014; Alexander 2015; Sanderson et al. 2017).
The South Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions to
global climate change (Asokan et al. 2016; Singh et al.
2016). The arid and semi-arid region in the western part of
South Asia particularly Pakistan is one of the most frequent
zones of deadly heat waves (Masood et al. 2015; UN
ESCAP 2015). Heat waves in 2015 and 2017 caused
thousands of human lives in Pakistan. Number of studies
123
Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment
reported increasing heat waves in Pakistan and neigh-
bouring countries due to climate change (Taghavi 2010;
Jiang et al. 2012; Azhar et al. 2014; Panda et al. 2017).
General circulation models projected a higher rise in
temperature in the region compared to global average,
which will certainly make the heat waves more frequent
and intense (IPCC 2013; UN ESCAP 2015; Im et al. 2017).
Therefore, it can be anticipated that losses of lives and
economy of Pakistan due to heat wave will increase in near
future if proper adaptation and mitigation measures are not
taken.
Despite large impacts, study related to heat wave is very
limited in Pakistan (Zahid and Rasul 2012; Saeed et al.
2017). Zahid and Rasul (2012) considered temperature
above 40 °C and 45 °C for consecutive 5 and 7 days
respectively to classify the heat wave in Pakistan. Saeed
et al. (2017) considered 45 °C or above for consecutive
5 days to project future heat waves in Pakistan. Nasim
et al. (2018) used the same methodology but categorized
heat wave based on the topography, 5–6 °C above the
mean maximum temperature for 8 consecutive days. All
the previous studies used limited number of station data
and adopted relative temperature as threshold for the whole
country for the analysis of heat waves. However, the WMO
(2015) definition of heat wave (5°C above the mean
maximum temperature) is not appropriate for predomi-
nantly arid region like Pakistan as it is a common phe-
nomenon for most of the hot summer in almost all the
region. Similarly, 90-th percentile temperature as threshold
shows a long duration and large areal extent of heat waves
in arid region (Alexander 2015). The temperature in many
parts of southern–eastern Balochistan and Sindh reaches
more than 45 °C for a longer time period. Hence, the
definition of above 45°C of mean maximum temperature is
also not appropriate for all the regions of Pakistan. Fur-
thermore, it was not possible to understand the spatial
pattern of heat waves or changes in areal extents or other
characteristics of heat waves from previous studies.
Thus, the objective of this study is to define heat wave
for Pakistan and analyse the spatial pattern and trend in
heat wave related indices. Devastation from heat wave
depends on different characteristics such as, duration,
maximum temperature, areal extent, night time temperature
during heat waves, etc. Therefore, for better assessment of
heat wave hazards and risk, it is very important to analyse
all the properties related to heat wave. Therefore, daily
minimum temperature (night time temperature) along with
maximum temperature was used to define a number of heat
wave indices in this study. The modified version of Mann–
Kendall trend test which can consider both short-and long-
term autocorrelations in time series was used for the
assessment of trends in heat wave indices.
Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment
2 Study area and data
Pakistan (latitudes 23°300 N–33°300 N and longitudes 61°E–
77°E), located in South Asia has an area of 796,095 km2
(Fig. 1). It has a predominantly arid climate characterized
by hot summer and cool or cold winter. The climate of the
country can be classified into four seasons based on tem-
perature: (1) cool and dry winter (December to February);
(2) hot and dry spring (March to May); (3) rainy monsoon
summer (June to August); and (4) autumn (September to
November). However, the onset and duration of these
seasons vary according to location due to significant spatial
and temporal variability of climate over the country.
Pakistan was divided into different temperature zones
for better description of heat wave and trends in heat wave
indices. Agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC)
approach was used for the classification of temperature
zones of Pakistan. The AHC is a more deterministic and
informative approach which offers an easily understand-
able cluster definition process for merging the most similar
clusters for climatic zonation (Manning et al. 2008; Badr
et al. 2014). The HiClimR package in R (Badr et al. 2014)
was used for this purpose. AHC divided the geographic
region of Pakistan into five temperature zones based on
annual average of daily maximum and minimum temper-
ature: (1) Zone 1: the highly elevated sub-Himalayan and
Karakoram regions in the extreme north with the average
Fig. 1 Topography and climatic
zones of Pakistan. Location of
meteorological station (1)
Lahore (2) D. I Khan (3) Multan
(4) Khuzdar and (5) Nawab
Shah used for the validation of
gridded temperature data are
also shown
winter minimum and summer maximum temperatures are
- 13.0 °C and 19.5 °C respectively; (2) Zone 2: the
extended desert in the southwest comprising the
Balochistan plateau, the coastal Makran Belt and Kharan
desert bordering with Afghanistan, having average winter
minimum and summer maximum temperatures of 13.2 °C
and 33.6 °C respectively; (3) Zone 3: the Indus plains in
the southeast covering the most part of the Sindh plains,
having average winter minimum and summer maximum
temperatures of 18.0 °C and 35.2 °C respectively; (4) Zone
4: the central region extended from the eastern part of
Balochistan to the central and eastern Punjab including the
Cholistan desert, which covers the most parts of Punjab
plains and has an average winter minimum and summer
maximum temperatures of 13.3 °C and 34.8 °C respec-
tively; (5) Zone 5: the elevated areas extended from the
Pothohar Plateau in the central Balochistan to the foothills
of sub-Himalayan ranges in the north, having average
winter minimum and summer maximum temperatures of
6.7 °C and 34.9 °C respectively.
Pakistan Meteorological Department has a total of 96
stations distributed over the country. It is difficult to
analyse the spatial variability of the temperature with
limited number of stations considering an area of
796,095 km2 (Ahmed et al. 2014). Gridded data are gen-
erally used for the assessment of spatial variability of cli-
mate in such region where long-term densely gauge data
123

are not available. A large number of gridded datasets have
been developed in last two decades for climatological
studies in data scarce regions (Ahmed et al. 2017). In the
present study, the daily gridded data of maximum and
minimum temperature of the Princeton University global
meteorological forcing (PGF) due to its higher spatial
resolution of 0.25° 9 0.25 was used. The PGF dataset is
developed for the period 1948–2010 by merging the
reanalysis datasets of the National Centers for Environ-
mental Prediction (NCEP) and National Center for Atmo-
spheric Research (NCAR) and a collection of global
observed databases (Sheffield et al. 2006; Chaney et al.
2014). The Princeton data has been widely used in recent
climate studies at global (Sheffield and Wood 2007;
Sheffield et al. 2012) and regional (Duan et al. 2016; Orth
et al. 2016; Aloysius and Saiers 2017; Onyutha and Will-
ems 2017) scales including in Asia (Wu et al. 2012; Aadhar
and Mishra 2017; Aich et al. 2017; Zhu et al. 2017).
For the validation of PGF data, daily maximum and
minimum temperature data at 30 gauging locations for the
period 1978–2010 were collected from Pakistan Meteoro-
logical Department (PMD). Among those 5 stations data
(Fig. 1) having least amount of missing data were used for
the validation of PGF dataset.
3 Methodology
3.1 Validation of gridded temperature data
The homogeneity of observed data was first assessed before
using them for the validation of PGF dataset. The subjec-
tive double mass curve method and the objective student’s
t test were applied to the annual average of daily temper-
ature time series at each observed station for this purpose.
The double mass curve is a plot of the deviation from a
station’s accumulated values versus the average accumu-
lation of the climatic zone. Though the stations with high
missing data were not selected in this study, they were used
for development of double mass curve. The sequential
Student’s t test was conducted to assess homogeneity in
data by determining whether various samples are derived
from the same population.
A number of performance metrices including normal-
ized root-mean-square deviation or error (NRMSE %),
percentage bias (PBIAS %), Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency
(NSE), modified index of agreement (md) and coefficient
of determination (R2) were used for the assessment of
performance of PGF dataset in replicating observed tem-
perature data. The above-mentioned performance metrices
were used as those were found robust to compare the mean,
temporal variability and structural similarity between two
sets of data (Ahmed et al. 2017).
123
Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment
3.2 Defining heat wave
In the present study, heat wave was defined based on
thermal load where a percentile threshold was decided
based on the area covered by heat waves that matches well
with the areas which are historically considered as heat
wave prone. For this purpose, the duration and areal extent
of heat waves for maximum temperature above different
percentiles namely, 90-th, 95-th and 99-th were used for
defining heat wave in Pakistan.
3.3 Heat wave indices
Seven indices related to heat wave was used to assess
trends in different characteristics of heat wave. The indices
were compiled from different studies (Alexander 2015;
You et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2017; Chen and Li 2017). The
description of the indices is given in Table 1.
3.4 Trends in heat wave indices
The Sen’s slope estimator (Sen 1968) was used to estimate
the rate of change in heat wave indices and the modified
Mann–Kendall (MMK) trend test (Hamed 2008) was used
to assess the significance of change. The significance of
trends is highly sensitive to both short-and long-term per-
sistence. The MMK test accounts for the autocorrelations
and thus enhance the ability of the test to differentiate the
multi-decadal oscillatory variations from long-term per-
sistence or secular trends (Salman et al. 2017; Khan et al.
2018; Nashwan et al. 2018).
In Sen’s method, the slopes between all consecutive data
points are estimated using following equation,
Q0 ¼ xt0  xt=t0  t ð1Þ
where Q0 is slope between data points xt0 and xt measured at
time t0 and t. The Sen’s slope is the median of all slopes
(Q0 ), which show the rate of change over the whole period.
In MMK test, the equivalent normal variants of rank (Ri)
of the de-trended series of data length n is estimated as,
 
Ri
Zi ¼ /1 ð2Þ
nþ1
where /-1 is the inverse standard normal distribution
function. The correlation matrix of self-similarity of the
time series or the Hurst coefficient (H) is derived using the
following equation (Koutsoyiannis 2003):
h i
Cn ðH Þ ¼ qjjij ; for i ¼ 1 : n; j ¼ 1 : n ð3Þ
1 
ql ¼ jl þ 1j2H 2jlj2H þjl  1j2H ð4Þ
2
where ql is the autocorrelation function of lag l for a given
Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment

Table 1 Definition of heat wave indices used in the present study

Index Description Unit

AHW Affected area by heat waves km2

DHW Maximum duration of heat wave days
THW Maximum temperature during heat waves °C
CTHW Cumulative temperature during heat waves °C
HWI Heat wave index (% of area affected by number of heat waves) –
ACHW Area having both maximum and minimum temperature above a certain percentile % of total area
DCHW Period for which both maximum and minimum temperature above a certain percentile days

H. The value of H is obtained using maximum log likeli- comparing the observed data with the nearest grid point of
hood function. The significance level of H is determined by PGF data. The results obtained using NRMSE %,
using mean and standard deviation for H = 0.5 (normal PBIAS %, NSE, md and R2 are presented in Table 2. The
distribution). If H is found significant, the biased estimate NRMSE values were found in the range of 2.95–53.8%,
of the variance of S is calculated for given H as, while PBIAS were noticed between - 1.6 and 17.7%. The
! NSE, md and R2 values were found above 0.71 at all sta-
0 X X2 qjj  ij  qji  lj  qjj  kj þ qji  kj
V ðSÞH ¼ : sin1 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi tions for both maximum and minimum temperature data.
p ð2  2qji  jjÞð2  2qjk  ljÞ
i\j k\l
The low errors, low biases and high NSE, md and R2 values
ð5Þ suggest the promising capability of PGF data in replicating
the daily maximum and minimum temperature of Pakistan.
The bias in estimation of V(S)H is removed using a bias
correction factor, B as below:
0
4.2 Defining heat waves for Pakistan
V ðSÞH ¼ V ðSÞH B ð6Þ
The areal extents of heat wave affected areas with maxi-
where, B is a function of H. The significance of MMK test
mum temperature above 90-th, 95-th and 99-th percentiles
is estimated using normalized z score,
8 for consecutive 5 days or more were estimated. The
>
> S1 affected areas for different years for all the three per-
>
> qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi if S [ 0
>
> H centiles are shown in Fig. 2. The figure shows average 51%
< V ð SÞ
Z¼ 0 if S ¼ 0 ð7Þ of the country affected by heat wave every year if 90-th
>
> Sþ1 percentile of daily maximum temperature was considered
>
> q ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi if S\0
>
> as the threshold for defining heat waves. While the per-
: V ð SÞ H
centage of affected areas were 23% and 8%, when 95-th
A positive or negative value of Z indicates an upward or and 99-th percentiles were considered as thresholds. The
downward trend. At 95% significance levels, the null 51% affected area for every year is very high, which
hypothesis of no trend is rejected if |Z| [ 1.96. indicates that a definition of heat wave based on 90-th
percentile temperature is not appropriate for Pakistan. On
the other hand, the average affected area of 8% is very low
4 Results and discussion when 99-th percentile is used as threshold (Fig. 4). The
affected area considering 99-th percentile thresholds never
4.1 Validation of gridded temperature data found to exceed 32%, while it is well recognized that most
of the southern part of Pakistan which covers 40% land of
The results of the double mass curves at 5 stations showed the country is affected by heat waves in extreme heat wave
almost a straight line indicating no break point in the time years.
series. The student’s t test statistics for the stations were The spatial distribution of heat wave affected area for all
found far below the corresponding test statistics at 0.05 the affected years were prepared and scrutinized. The heat
significance level. Therefore, it can be considered that no wave affected area for two extreme years namely, 2006 and
statistically significant variation or break point exists in any 2010 are presented in Fig. 3 as example. The general
temperature time series. concept of heat waves in Pakistan is that it usually affects
The homogeneous observed temperature data were used the Sindh and Punjab plains (zones III and IV), and the
for the validation of PGF data. The data was validated by southern coastal region and the Balochistan plateau (zone

123
 Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment

Table 2 Validation of PGF

Indices Lahore (1) DI Khan (2) Multan (3) Khuzdar (4) Nawab Shah (5)
gridded maximum and
minimum temperature data at Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min Max Min
five locations using statistical
performance indices NRMSE % 3.32 2.95 46.80 36.00 42.70 33.8 47.8 52.7 53.8 45.20
PBIAS % - 0.30 1.90 - 0.50 0.60 - 1.60 2.60 5.50 17.6 1.80 - 0.70
NSE 0.78 0.87 0.78 0.87 0.82 0.89 0.77 0.72 0.71 0.80
md 0.80 0.84 0.80 0.84 0.82 0.86 0.79 0.77 0.78 0.83
2
R 0.80 0.87 0.80 0.87 0.84 0.89 0.83 0.83 0.8 0.82

Fig. 2 Percentage of total area

of Pakistan affected by heat
waves during 1948–2010 when
daily maximum temperature
above 90-th, 95-th and 99-th
percentiles for consecutive
5 days or more were considered
to define heat wave

II). On the other hand, the elevated lands in zones I and V
are historically considered less prone of heat waves. The
figure shows that almost whole Pakistan was affected by
heat wave in 2010 and all parts except the sub-Himalayan
region (zone I) was affected in 2006, when 90-th percentile
was considered as threshold temperature. In case of 99-th
percentile as threshold, the affected areas were found only
in the desert of southeast corner of Pakistan in 2010 and in
two small patches one in the western hyper-arid region of
Balochistan (zone II) and the other in the eastern Sindh
plain (zone III) in 2006. However, media reported that heat
wave in 2010 affected most part of Pakistan except zone I.
A number of newspaper articles reported death and effect
on public health in Sindh and Punjab plains and
Balochistan plateau in zones II, III and IV. Temperature is
usually low in high elevated northern regions of Pakistan.
Due to its location in the sub-Himalayan region, it also
experiences frequent rainfall events during summer mon-
soon. Therefore, hot days in the region are usually very
short. Public health hazard due to temperature extremes are
never reported in those regions. When 95-th percentile of
maximum temperature was considered as threshold tem-
perature, the spatial extent of heat wave affected area was
found to cover zones II, III and IV (Fig. 3) which are
historically considered as heat wave prone regions of
Pakistan.
Zahid and Rasul (2012) analysed observed temperature
data collected from 42 locations of Pakistan and suggested
that heat waves do not occur in the northern region of the
country. The media reported that the heat wave in 2010
affected almost whole Pakistan except the northern region
(The Express Tribune 2018; The Guardian 2018). It was
also reported that the most affected area in 2010 were in
the central, southern, and the eastern regions of Pakistan.
Based on the affected area described in media and other
reports, it was found that the affected area matches most
well when 95-th percentile of daily maximum temperature
for consecutive 5 days or more was considered as threshold
(Fig. 3). Therefore, in the present study, heat wave of
Pakistan was defined as maximum temperature above 95-th
percentile for consecutive 5 days or more.
4.3 Reconstruction of historical heat waves
in Pakistan
The definition of heat wave was used for the reconstruction
of historical heat waves and the estimation of the affected
population by the heat waves for the period 1948-2010.
The heat wave affected years was identified based on
affected area. The southern part of Pakistan including the
Sindh and Punjab plains (zone III and IV) and the eastern
and southern parts of Balochistan (zone II) covers almost
40% area of Pakistan. Historically, these areas are con-
sidered as heat wave prone regions of Pakistan. During
extreme heat wave years, the whole southern and south-
western parts (Zones II, III and IV) or at least 40% of total

123
Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment
Fig. 3 Spatial extents of heat wave affected area in 2006 and 2010 when daily maximum temperature above 90-th, 95-th and 99-th percentiles for
consecutive 5 days or more were considered to define heat wave
land of the country is affected by heat wave. Therefore, a
year is considered as heat wave affected year if the areal
extent of heat wave is more than 40% of total area of
Pakistan for that year. The present study found 1952, 1978,
1984, 1988, 2002, 2006, 2009 and 2010 as the major heat
wave affected years in Pakistan during the period
1948–2010.
The spatial distributions of heat wave affected area
during extreme years are shown in Fig. 4. The figure re-
vealed that heat waves occurs almost the whole country
except in zones I and V in extreme years. In 1952, the heat
waves were observed in the southwest, east and central
regions of the country (zones II, III and IV), with a max-
imum duration of more than 20 days in the eastern part of
the country (zone IV). A much stronger heat wave stroke
Pakistan in 1978 in the populated area of Sindh (zone III)
and the coastal and the south-western parts of Balochistan
(zone II). The highest duration heat wave in 1978 was
observed 26 days in zone II. The heat wave in 1984 was
found most severe in the eastern part (zones III and IV)
with duration of about 21 days. A vast region was affected
by the heat wave of 1988. The longest duration ([ 21 days)
of heat wave in 1988 were found in the southern and
southeast regions (zones II, III and IV). Heat wave in 2002
had a maximum duration of about 22 days in zone II. A
similar pattern but longer duration heat wave was observed
in 2006. The duration of heat wave in the western part of
the Balochistan (zone II) was 24 days in 2006. In 2009, the
heat wave was found mostly in the western part with a
maximum duration of 21 days. The 2010 heat wave had the
largest areal extent among the eight extreme heat wave
years between 1948 and 2010. The highest duration of heat
wave in 2010 (16 days) was noticed in the eastern Punjab
region (zone IV). Overall, the results showed that south-
west part of the country (zone II) experiences more fre-
quent and longest duration heat waves.
The population distribution of Pakistan is shown in
Fig. 5. The figure shows that most of the people live in
Sindh and Punjab plains (zones III and IV). Therefore, heat
waves in zones III and IV severely affect the public health.
The distribution of population was overlapped with heat
wave maps (Fig. 4) for the heat wave affected years and
123

Fig. 4 Spatial extents of heat waves in extreme heat wave affected years during 1948–2010. The colour ramp represents the duration of heat
wave in days and the size of the circle represents population
the percentage of population affected by heat waves was
calculated (Table 3). It was found that the highest per-
centage of population (82.95%) was affected by heat wave
in 2010. Larger population was affected when heat wave
occurred in highly populated regions (zones III and IV).
For example, the affected population was only 41.82% in
2009 as zone IV was not affected by heat wave. The
table indicates the severity of heat wave in Pakistan where
usually more than half of the total population is affected by
heat waves in six out of 63 years or once in a decade on
average. The table also shows that more people are affected
by heat waves in recent years.
The media attention is given more in the years when
heat wave strikes the highly populated region in the east
and southeast regions of Pakistan. Usually, casualties are
high even for small areal extent heat waves with moderate
duration when it occurs in populated Sindh and Punjab
regions. Therefore, it is not possible to anticipate the
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Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment
severity of heat waves in Pakistan from historical casualties
and economic damages from heat waves.
Overall, the study revealed that the most intense heat
waves in Pakistan are mostly occurs in the southwest fol-
lowed by southeast. The southwest part of Pakistan has an
arid climate where rainfall is very less and days with very
high temperature last for a longer period. Some parts of the
regions experience highest temperature of the country
during summer. Population in the region is less than 1% of
total population of Pakistan due to harsh climate. There-
fore, population affected by heat waves are comparatively
less in the region compared to that when heat wave occurs
in densely populated Panjab and Sindh plains.
4.4 General characteristics of heat waves
General characteristics of heat waves in Pakistan were
assessed using statistical analysis of heat wave indices
Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment

Fig. 5 District-wise population

distribution of Pakistan

Table 3 Percentage of population affected in extreme heat wave Table 4 The statistical summary of heat wave related indices in
years Pakistan
Year of heat wave Major affected zones % population affected Indices Mean SD Max Min Skew

1952 III, IV, V 55.66 AHW 23.0 14.2 62.7 0.5 0.9
1978 II, III, IV 71.10 DHW 16.7 7.8 48.0 6.0 1.6
1984 All zones 74.02 THW 48.3 1.3 51.3 45.1 0.2
1988 II, III, IV, V 72.25 CTHW 803.5 612.9 1451.9 230.9 2.7
2002 II, III, IV 48.91 HI 0.9 0.7 2.9 0.0 1.1
2006 II, III, IV, V 60.62 ACHW 19.1 11.1 53.4 4.0 0.9
2009 II, III, V 41.82 DCHW 15.2 5.7 35.0 6.0 1.2
2010 II, III, IV, V 82.95

minimum temperature was found 19.1% of the country.

estimated for the period 1948-2010. Obtained results are
presented in Table 4. On average 23% area of Pakistan is
affected by heat waves in every year. The highest per-
centage of area affected by heat wave (AHW) was 62.7%
in 2009, while the lowest was 0.5% in 1957. The average
maximum duration of heat wave (DHW) in Pakistan was
16.7 days, while the maximum temperature during heat
wave (THW) was found to rise 51.3°C (1956) while the
lowest mean maximum temperature during heat wave was
45.1 °C (1989). The highest duration of heat wave (DHW)
was 48 days (1981) and the lowest duration was 6 days
(1957). The mean heat wave affected area (ACHW) mea-
sured using above 95-the percentile of both maximum and
The highest percentage of affected area was 53.41% (2010)
and the lowest was 4% (1996).
4.5 Trends in heat wave related indices
The trend in AHW as a percentage of total area of Pakistan
is presented in Fig. 6. A gradual increase in AHW with a
much sharp rise in recent years was observed. The Sen’s
slope method estimated that AHW in Pakistan is increasing
at a rate of 0.56% per decade. However, the change was not
found significant by MMK test.
The trend in DHW is shown in Fig. 7. Longer duration
heat waves were noticed after year 2000 compared to

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 Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment

Fig. 6 Trends in heat wave

affected area in Pakistan (% of
total area) for the period
1948–2010

earlier years. The average duration of heat waves during
2000–2010 was found 20.5 days compared to total average
of 16.7 days. Sharp rise in heat wave duration after 2000
caused an upward trend in Fig. 7. The average duration of
heat wave in Pakistan was estimated to increase at a rate of
0.71 days/decade at 95% level of confidence.
The trend in THW is shown in Fig. 8. The THW was
noticed to reach above 50 °C in a number of years between
1948 and 2010. The MMK test revealed no significant
change in THW in Pakistan. The extreme THW values
were found fairly distributed over the whole period.
The trend in CTHW for years 1948–2010 is shown in
Fig. 9. No significant change in CTHW was also observed
using MMK test. The average value of CTHW for Pakistan
was 803.51 °C (Table 4) for the whole period, while the
average value of CTHW for the years 2000–2010 was
1279.9 °C. Though no trend was detected when data was
analysed for the whole period (1948–2010), the higher
values in CTHW in recent years clearly indicates more
severe heat waves in Pakistan in recent years.
The HWI was estimated following the definition of US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Kunkel 2016).
The number of heat waves affected the percentage of total
area of Pakistan was used to estimate HWI. For example, if
10% of land is affected by one heat wave, the HWI is 0.1;
if 40% land is affected by 3 heat waves, the HWI is 1.2,
etc. Average HWI for Pakistan was found 0.176. The
highest HWI was 2.85 in 2006 as shown in Fig. 10. The
HWI was also found very high for all the years after 2005.
The results indicate that a large portion of the country was
affected by number of heat waves in recent years. The
trend analysis of HWI revealed a significant increase at a
rate of 0.009 per decade at 95% level of confidence.
Changes in two heat wave indices estimated using both
maximum and minimum temperature are shown in Figs. 11
and 12. The trends in percentage of area experienced both
maximum and minimum temperature above 95-th per-
centile temperature for consecutive 5 days or more showed
significant increase at a rate of 1.36% decade, while the
consecutive days having both maximum and minimum
temperature above 95-th percentile temperature was found
to increase at a rate of 0.95 days/decade over the period
1948–2010. Both the increases were found significant at
95% level of confidence. The results indicate that the areal

Fig. 7 Trends in heat wave 60

duration (days) for the period
1948–2010
50
Heatwave Duration (Day)

40

30

20

10

0
1948

1952

1956

1960

1964

1968

1972

1976

1980

1984

1988

1992

1996

2000

2004

2008

123
Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment

Fig. 8 Changes in maximum 52

temperature during heat wave
for the period 1948–2010 51
50

Max Temperature (ºC)

49
48
47
46
45
44

1948

1952

1956

1960

1964

1968

1972

1976

1980

1984

1988

1992

1996

2000

2004

2008
Fig. 9 Trends in cumulative
temperature during heat wave
for the period 1948–2010

Fig. 10 Trends in heat wave 3

index for the period 1948–2010
2.5
Heat Wave Index

1.5

0.5

0
1948

1952

1956

1960

1964

1968

1972

1976

1980

1984

1988

1992

1996

2000

2004

2008

extents and the duration of heat waves estimated using both increasing heat waves in Pakistan, the trends in daily
the day and night time temperature are increasing in maximum and minimum temperatures were assessed. The
Pakistan. differences between maximum and minimum temperature
or the diurnal temperature range (DTR) is independent of
4.6 Changes in temperature internal climate variations and therefore, considered as a
meteorological indicator associated with global climate
Rising temperature is often blamed as the cause of change (Karoly et al. 2003; Braganza et al. 2003; Shahid
increasing heat waves. To understand the cause of et al. 2012). The trends in DTR was also assessed to show

123
 Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment

Fig. 11 Trends in percentage of 60

area experiences both maximum
and minimum temperature
50
above 95-th percentile
temperature for consecutive

Affected Area (%)

5 days or more for the period 40
1948–2010
30

20

10

1948

1952

1956

1960

1964

1968

1972

1976

1980

1984

1988

1992

1996

2000

2004

2008
Fig. 12 Trends in consecutive 40
days having both maximum and
minimum temperature above 35
95-th percentile temperature
30
Duration (days)

25
20
15
10
5
0
1948

1952

1956

1960

1964

1968

1972

1976

1980

1984

1988

1992

1996

2000

2004

the impact of global warming on temperature and heat
waves in Pakistan. The trend maps of maximum and
minimum temperature and DTR are shown in Fig. 13. The
colour ramps in the figure show the changes in temperature
or DTR, while the dots indicate the significant change at
95% level of confidence.
The figure shows increase in both maximum and mini-
mum temperature in most part of Pakistan. The highest
changes were observed for maximum temperature in the
western part of the country at a rate of 0.5 °C/decade.
However, the minimum temperature was found to increase
in more areas (81.6%) compared to maximum temperature
(53.6%). The minimum temperature was also found to
increase faster in most of the areas compared to maximum
temperature and therefore, decrease in DTR at a large
number of grid points. The results indicated that increases
in both maximum and minimum temperatures have caused
increases in heat wave related indices in Pakistan. The
decrease in DTR indicated that the rising temperature and
the increases in heat waves may be linked to global
warming induced climate change.
2008
5 Discussion
A number of studies have been conducted to assess trends
in temperature of Pakistan in recent years (Islam et al.
2009; Zahid and Rasul 2012; Abbas 2013; del Rio et al.
2013; Khattak and Ali 2015; Iqbal et al. 2016; Jahangir
et al. 2016; Saleem et al. 2017; Aslam et al. 2017; Khan
et al. 2018). Few studies have also been conducted to
assess trends in temperature extremes of Pakistan (Re-
vadekar et al. 2013; Sheikh et al. 2015). Besides, a number
of studies have been conducted in neighbouring countries
bordering Pakistan to assess the trends in temperature and
temperature related extremes. All the studies revealed fast
rises in temperature and a number of temperature extremes
in the region in recent years. The results of temperature
trends obtained in this study using gridded data collaborate
with the findings of previous studies. Both the maximum
and minimum temperatures were found to increase in this
study. The significant increase in daily maximum temper-
ature was found at 53.6% of grid points over Pakistan at
95% level of confidence. On the other hand, the daily
minimum temperature was found to increase at 81.6% of

123
Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment
Fig. 13 Spatial pattern in the trends of annual average of daily
maximum, minimum and diurnal temperature range in Pakistan
grid points at 95% level of confidence. Higher increase in
daily minimum temperature compared to daily maximum
temperature has caused decrease in DTR of Pakistan up to
- 0.16 °C/decade. The decreases in DTR were found
significant at 93.2% grid points at 95% level of confidence.
The DTR provides spatial information of climate change
(Karoly et al. 2003; Braganza et al. 2003; Shahid 2010;
Wang et al. 2016) and therefore, the results indicate that
significant impact of climate change is already visible in
most part of Pakistan.
Several studies reported that the increases in tempera-
ture have caused increases in temperature related extremes
in Pakistan (Zahid and Rasul 2012; del Rio et al. 2013;
Abbas 2013; Iqbal et al. 2016) and neighbouring regions
(Zhang et al. 2009; You et al. 2008, 2011; Chakraborty
et al. 2017; Panda et al. 2017; Araghi et al. 2016). Zahid
and Rasul (2012) found that the frequency of extreme
maximum temperature events has increased throughout the
country during 1965–2009. Del Rio et al. (2013) assessed
trends in temperature of Pakistan using MK test and
reported increase in annual and seasonal mean temperature
in Pakistan during 1952–2009. Abbas (2013) reported that
the occurrence of extreme cold nights and days have
decreased while the extreme hot days and have increased in
Punjab region of Pakistan. Iqbal et al. (2016) found that the
maximum temperature was increasing faster than minimum
temperature in the northern areas, while the opposite
occurred in the rest of the country during 1952–2009. The
present study revealed that increases in temperature have
caused changes in the different characteristics of heat
waves.
The major temperature related concern in Pakistan is the
occurrence of heat waves, which often claims lives (Ma-
sood et al. 2015). A number of studies also revealed high
implication of heat waves in public health of Pakistan
(Rauf et al. 2017). Present study revealed increases in heat
wave related indices mostly in the region which are often
experiences heat waves. This will certainly make the
impacts of heat waves in Pakistan more devastating. The
projection of climate models revealed continues increase of
temperature extremes in Pakistan due to global warming
(Islam et al. 2009; Mahmood and Babel 2013; Aslam et al.
2017). Islam et al. (2009) used regional climate model
(RCM) and projected an increase in maximum temperature
in the range of 3–4 °C and minimum temperature in the
range of 4.5–5.5 °C in 2071–2100. The increasing tem-
perature will certainly increase heat waves in Pakistan in
future. Saeed et al. (2017) also reported increased fre-
quency of heat waves due to climate change. The studies
indicate that Pakistan needs to plane adaptation policies
considering fast increase in temperature extremes in future.
6 Conclusion
Changes in various characteristics of heat waves in Pak-
istan have been assessed in this study using MMK test.
Significant increase in affected area and duration for both
the maximum and minimum temperature above the 95-th
percentile indicates increases in severity of heat waves in
123

Pakistan. The decreases in DTR were observed in most part
of Pakistan, which indicates that the increases in heat
waves in Pakistan is due to the effect of global climate
change. The results revealed that the most intense heat
waves in Pakistan are mostly occurs in the southwest fol-
lowed by southeast. The heat wave indices are increasing
in the region where the frequency of occurrence of heat
waves is already very high. Therefore, increases in heat
wave duration and intensity can have severe implication for
vast population of the country, which emphasizes the
urgent need of adaptation and mitigation planning. The
heat waves in Pakistan have become more devastating in
recent few years. Therefore, other gridded daily tempera-
ture data having records of recent years can be used in
future for assessment of recent changes in the character-
istics of heat waves. Furthermore, research can be con-
ducted to derive a single composite index to define all the
characteristics of heat waves together for better assessment
of the changes in heat waves.
Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to the Ministry of
Education Malaysia and the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for pro-
viding financial support for this research through GUP Grant No.
Q.J130000.2522.19H44.
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