| 1. |
- Vitolo, Claudia, et al.
(författare)
-
Mapping combined wildfire and heat stress hazards to improve evidence-based decision making
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Environment International. - : PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD. - 0160-4120 .- 1873-6750. ; 127, s. 21-34
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Heat stress and forest fires are often considered highly correlated hazards as extreme temperatures play a key role in both occurrences. This commonality can influence how civil protection and local responders deploy resources on the ground and could lead to an underestimation of potential impacts, as people could be less resilient when exposed to multiple hazards. In this work, we provide a simple methodology to identify areas prone to concurrent hazards, exemplified with, but not limited to, heat stress and fire danger. We use the combined heat and forest fire event that affected Europe in June 2017 to demonstrate that the methodology can be used for analysing past events as well as making predictions, by using reanalysis and medium-range weather forecasts, respectively. We present new spatial layers that map the combined danger and make suggestions on how these could be used in the context of a Multi-Hazard Early Warning System. These products could be particularly valuable in disaster risk reduction and emergency response management, particularly for civil protection, humanitarian agencies and other first responders whose role is to identify priorities during pre-interventions and emergencies.
|
|
| 2. |
- Brimicombe, Chloe, et al.
(författare)
-
Borderless Heat Hazards With Bordered Impacts
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Earth's Future. - : American Geophysical Union (AGU). - 2328-4277. ; 9:9
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Heatwaves are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity due to climate change. They are associated with high mortality rates and cross-sectional impacts including a reduction in crop yield and power outages. Here we demonstrate that there are large deficiencies in reporting of heatwave impacts in international disasters databases, international organization reports, and climate bulletins. We characterize the distribution of heat stress across the world focusing on August in the Northern Hemisphere, when notably heatwaves have taken place (i.e., 2003, 2010, and 2020) for the last 20 years using the ERA5-HEAT reanalysis of the Universal Thermal Comfort Index and establish heat stress has grown larger in extent, more so during a heatwave. Comparison of heat stress against the emergency events impacts database and climate reports reveals underreporting of heatwave-related impacts. This work suggests an internationally agreed protocol should be put in place for impact reporting by organizations and national government, facilitating implementation of preparedness measures, and early warning systems.
|
|
| 3. |
- Brimicombe, Chloe, et al.
(författare)
-
Heatwaves : An invisible risk in UK policy and research
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Environmental Science and Policy. - : Elsevier. - 1462-9011 .- 1873-6416. ; 116, s. 1-7
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In 2019, a heatwave - an unusual extended period of hot weather - broke the UK's highest recorded temperature of 38.7 degrees C set in 2003. Of concern is that for summer 2019, this resulted in 892 excess deaths. With the intensity and frequency of UK heatwaves projected to increase, and summer temperatures predicted to be 5 degrees C hotter by 2070, urgent action is needed to prepare for, and adapt to, the changes now and to come. Yet it remains unclear what actions are needed and by whom. In response, a systematic literature review of UK heatwaves peer reviewed publications, inclusive of keyword criteria (total papers returned = 183), was conducted to understand what lessons have been learnt and what needs to happen next. Our research shows that heatwaves remain largely an invisible risk in the UK. Communication over what UK residents should do, the support needed to make changes, and their capacity to enact those changes, is often lacking. In turn, there is an inherent bias where research focuses too narrowly on the health and building sectors over other critical sectors, such as agriculture. An increased amount of action and leadership is therefore necessary from the UK government to address this.
|
|
| 4. |
- Brimicombe, Chloe, et al.
(författare)
-
Thermofeel : A python thermal comfort indices library
- 2022
-
Ingår i: SoftwareX. - : Elsevier. - 2352-7110. ; 18
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Here the development of the python library thermofeel is described. thermofeel was developed so that prominent internationally used thermal indices (i.e. Universal Thermal Climate Index and Wet Bulb Globe Temperature) could be implemented into operational weather forecasting systems (i.e. the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts) whilst also adhering to open research practices. This library will be of benefit to many sectors including meteorology, sport, health and social care, hygiene, agriculture and building. In addition, it could be used in heat early warning systems which, with the right preparedness measures, has the potential to save lives from thermal extremes.
|
|
| 5. |
- Brimicombe, Chloe, et al.
(författare)
-
Wet Bulb Globe Temperature : Indicating Extreme Heat Risk on a Global Grid
- 2023
-
Ingår i: GeoHealth. - : American Geophysical Union (AGU). - 2471-1403. ; 7:2
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) is an international standard heat index used by the health, industrial, sports, and climate sectors to assess thermal comfort during heat extremes. Observations of its components, the globe and the wet bulb temperature (WBT), are however sparse. Therefore WBGT is difficult to derive, making it common to rely on approximations, such as the ones developed by Liljegren et al. and by the American College of Sports Medicine (WBGT(ACSM87)). In this study, a global data set is created by implementing an updated WBGT method using ECMWF ERA5 gridded meteorological variables and is evaluated against existing WBGT methods. The new method, WBGT(Brimicombe), uses globe temperature calculated using mean radiant temperature and is found to be accurate in comparison to WBGT(Liljegren) across three heatwave case studies. In addition, it is found that WBGT(ACSM87) is not an adequate approximation of WBGT. Our new method is a candidate for a global forecasting early warning system.
|
|
| 6. |
- Di Napoli, Claudia, et al.
(författare)
-
Assessing heat-related health risk in Europe via the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI)
- 2018
-
Ingår i: International journal of biometeorology. - : SPRINGER. - 0020-7128 .- 1432-1254. ; 62:7, s. 1155-1165
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this work, the potential of the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) as a heat-related health risk indicator in Europe is demonstrated. The UTCI is a bioclimate index that uses a multi-node human heat balance model to represent the heat stress induced by meteorological conditions to the human body. Using 38 years of meteorological reanalysis data, UTCI maps were computed to assess the thermal bioclimate of Europe for the summer season. Patterns of heat stress conditions and non-thermal stress regions are identified across Europe. An increase in heat stress up to 1 A degrees C is observed during recent decades. Correlation with mortality data from 17 European countries revealed that the relationship between the UTCI and death counts depends on the bioclimate of the country, and death counts increase in conditions of moderate and strong stress, i.e., when UTCI is above 26 and 32 A degrees C. The UTCI's ability to represent mortality patterns is demonstrated for the 2003 European heatwave. These findings confirm the importance of UTCI as a bioclimatic index that is able to both capture the thermal bioclimatic variability of Europe, and relate such variability with the effects it has on human health.
|
|
| 7. |
- Di Napoli, Claudia, et al.
(författare)
-
ERA5-HEAT : A global gridded historical dataset of human thermal comfort indices from climate reanalysis
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Geoscience Data Journal. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2049-6060. ; 8:1, s. 2-10
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The mean radiant temperature (MRT) and the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) are widely used as human biometeorology parameters to assess the linkages between outdoor environment and human well-being. Historically computed from meteorological station measurements, we here present ERA5-HEAT (Human thErmAl comforT), the first historical dataset of MRT and UTCI as spatially gridded records at the global scale. Derived using climate variables from ERA5, a quality-controlled reanalysis produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) within the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), ERA5-HEAT consists of hourly gridded maps of MRT and UTCI at 0.25 degrees x 0.25 degrees spatial resolution. It currently spans from 1979 to present, and it will be extended in time as updates of ERA5 are made available. ERA5-HEAT provides two streams, a consolidated and an intermediate one, that are released at 2 or 3 months and 5 days behind real time, respectively. Data are publicly and freely available for download at the Climate Data Store which has been developed as part of C3S. Being the only existing global historical gridded time series of MRT and UTCI to date, ERA5-HEAT is aimed at a wide range of end users, from scientists to policymakers, with an interest in environment-health applications at any spatial and temporal scale.
|
|
| 8. |
- Di Napoli, Claudia, et al.
(författare)
-
Verification of Heat Stress Thresholds for a Health-Based Heat-Wave Definition
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology. - : AMER METEOROLOGICAL SOC. - 1558-8424 .- 1558-8432. ; 58:6, s. 1177-1194
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Heat waves represent a threat to human health and excess mortality is one of the associated negative effects. A health-based definition for heat waves is therefore relevant, especially for early warning purposes, and it is here investigated via the universal thermal climate index (UTCI). The UTCI is a bioclimate index elaborated via an advanced model of human thermoregulation that estimates the thermal stress induced by air temperature, wind speed, moisture, and radiation on the human physiology. Using France as a test bed, the UTCI was computed from meteorological reanalysis data to assess the thermal stress conditions associated with heat-attributable excess mortality in five cities. UTCI values at different climatological percentiles were defined and evaluated in their ability to identify periods of excess mortality (PEMs) over 24 years. Using verification metrics such as the probability of detection (POD), the false alarm ratio (FAR), and the frequency bias (FB), daily minimum and maximum heat stress levels equal to or above corresponding UTCI 95th percentiles (15 degrees +/- 2 degrees C and 34.5 degrees +/- 1.5 degrees C, respectively) for 3 consecutive days are demonstrated to correlate to PEMs with the highest sensitivity and specificity (0.69 <= POD <= 1, 0.19 <= FAR <= 0.46, 1 <= FB <= 1.48) than minimum, maximum, and mean heat stress level singularly and other bioclimatological percentiles. This finding confirms the detrimental effect of prolonged, unusually high heat stress at day- and nighttime and suggests the UTCI 95th percentile as a health-meaningful threshold for a potential heat-health watch warning system.
|
|
| 9. |
- Urban, Ales, et al.
(författare)
-
Evaluation of the ERA5 reanalysis-based Universal Thermal Climate Index on mortality data in Europe
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Environmental Research. - : Elsevier. - 0013-9351 .- 1096-0953. ; 198
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Air temperature has been the most commonly used exposure metric in assessing relationships between thermal stress and mortality. Lack of the high-quality meteorological station data necessary to adequately characterize the thermal environment has been one of the main limitations for the use of more complex thermal indices. Global climate reanalyses may provide an ideal platform to overcome this limitation and define complex heat and cold stress conditions anywhere in the world. In this study, we explored the potential of the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) based on ERA5 & ndash; the latest global climate reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) & ndash; as a health-related tool. Employing a novel ERA5-based thermal comfort dataset ERA5-HEAT, we investigated the relationships between the UTCI and daily mortality data in 21 cities across 9 European countries. We used distributed lag nonlinear models to assess exposure-response re-lationships between mortality and thermal conditions in individual cities. We then employed meta-regression models to pool the results for each city into four groups according to climate zone. To evaluate the perfor-mance of ERA5-based UTCI, we compared its effects on mortality with those for the station-based UTCI data. In order to assess the additional effect of the UTCI, the performance of ERA5-and station-based air temperature (T) was evaluated. Whilst generally similar heat-and cold-effects were observed for the ERA5-and station-based data in most locations, the important role of wind in the UTCI appeared in the results. The largest difference between any two datasets was found in the Southern European group of cities, where the relative risk of mortality at the 1st percentile of daily mean temperature distribution (1.29 and 1.30 according to the ERA5 vs station data, respectively) considerably exceeded the one for the daily mean UTCI (1.19 vs 1.22). These differences were mainly due to the effect of wind in the cold tail of the UTCI distribution. The comparison of exposure-response relationships between ERA5-and station-based data shows that ERA5-based UTCI may be a useful tool for definition of life-threatening thermal conditions in locations where high-quality station data are not available. and cold stress conditions anywhere in the world. In this study, we explored the potential of the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) based on ERA5 - the latest global climate reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) - as a health-related tool. Employing a novel ERA5-based thermal comfort dataset ERA5-HEAT, we investigated the relationships between the UTCI and daily mortality data in 21 cities across 9 European countries. We used distributed lag nonlinear models to assess exposure-response relationships between mortality and thermal conditions in individual cities. We then employed meta-regression models to pool the results for each city into four groups according to climate zone. To evaluate the performance of ERA5-based UTCI, we compared its effects on mortality with those for the station-based UTCI data. In order to assess the additional effect of the UTCI, the performance of ERA5-and station-based air temperature (T) was evaluated. Whilst generally similar heat- and cold-effects were observed for the ERA5-and station-based data in most locations, the important role of wind in the UTCI appeared in the results. The largest difference between any two datasets was found in the Southern European group of cities, where the relative risk of mortality at the 1st percentile of daily mean temperature distribution (1.29 and 1.30 according to the ERA5 vs station data,
|
|
