Journal of Sustainable Development; Vol. 8, No. 2; 2015 ISSN 1913-9063 E-ISSN 1913-9071 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education Estimating the Occurrence Probability of Heat Wave Periods Using the Markov Chain Model Farnood Freidooni1, Hooshmand Ataei2 & Fatemeh Shahriar3 1Faculty of Engineering, Imam Khomeini International University, Qazvin, Iran 2 Payamenoor University, Isfahan, Iran 3 Faculty of Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran Correspondence: Fatemeh Shahriar, Faculty of Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran. E-mail:
[email protected] Received: November 21, 2014 Accepted: January 8, 2015 Online Published: March 30, 2015 doi:10.5539/jsd.v8n2p26 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/jsd.v8n2p26 Abstract Regarding the climate changes, global warming, recent drought, forecasting the maximum temperature and hot weather waves has been considered as one of the most important climatic parameters which affects the ecosystems and provides a proper opportunity for the planners to prepare necessary arrangements. Studying and analyzing the maximum temperature is of great importance in managing the water and natural resources, agricultural products, spreading pests and diseases, melting the snow and flood, Evaporation and transpiration, drought and etc. In the present paper, the daily maximum temperature of ten weather stations in northern and southern hillside of Alborz which are geographically corresponded have been collected during 1980 to 2010