Climate Change Causes and Amplification Effects with a Focus on Urban Heat Islands

The aim of the article was to explore pet welfare in Municipal Adaptation Plans (MAPs), based on a literature review and case studies of 40 MAPs accepted in Poland as part of the “Let’s Feel the Climate” project, supported by the Polish Ministry of Environment in 2017–2019. The study summarizes the concept of climate change and the importance of adaptation measures with particular emphasis on urban heat islands and heat stress, acknowledged by climate change literature, and outlines pet welfare in the context of thermal comfort and threats caused by heat stress. Because the authors subsequently presented an empirical study of the 40 accepted MAPs, they also discussed the role and legal nature of MAPs. The main hypothesis of this survey of Polish MAPs was that pet welfare in the context of their thermal comfort is an example of the adaptive measures clearly stipulated in Polish MAPs, which was examined after presenting the MAPs’ findings. The starting point was the assumption that the welfare of pets should also be assessed from the perspective of their thermal comfort – a new element of broadly understood animal welfare. This is due to the fact that pets are exposed to the risk of heat stress resulting from urban heat islands and, just like people, have to endure the inconvenience of extreme weather phenomena, which is impossible without the support of amenities such as drinkers or water shelters and the development of green and blue infrastructure.

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(Re)presenting urban heat islands in Australian cities: A study of media reporting and implications for urban heat and climate change debates

Urban Climate ◽

10.1016/j.uclim.2018.12.014 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 27 ◽

pp. 420-429 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Alexander Iping ◽

Juliette Kidston-Lattari ◽

Alice Simpson-Young ◽

Elizabeth Duncan ◽

Phil McManus

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Urban Heat Islands ◽

Media Reporting ◽

Heat Islands ◽

Urban Heat

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Automated detection of urban heat islands based on satellite imagery, digital surface models, and a low-cost sensor network

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14143 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sebastian Schlögl ◽

Nico Bader ◽

Julien Gérard Anet ◽

Martin Frey ◽

Curdin Spirig ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Air Temperature ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Low Cost ◽

Urban Heat Islands ◽

Heat Islands ◽

Micro Scale ◽

Air Temperatures ◽

Urban Heat

Today, more than half of the world&#8217;s population lives in urban areas and the proportion is projected to increase further in the near future. The increased number of heatwaves worldwide caused by the anthropogenic climate change may lead to heat stress and significant economic and ecological damages. Therefore, the growth of urban areas in combination with climate change can increase future mortality rates in cities, given that cities are more vulnerable to heatwaves due to the greater heat storage capacity of artificial surfaces towards higher longwave radiation fluxes.To detect urban heat islands and resolve the micro-scale air temperature field in an urban environment, a low-cost air temperature network, including 450 sensors, was installed in the Swiss cities of Zurich and Basel in 2019 and 2020. These air temperature data, complemented with further official measurement stations, force a statistical air temperature downscaling model for urban environments, which is used operationally to calculate hourly micro-scale air temperatures in 10 m horizontal resolution. In addition to air temperature measurements from the low-cost sensor network, the model is further forced by albedo, NDVI, and NDBI values generated from the polar-orbiting satellite Sentinel-2, land surface temperatures estimated from Landsat-8, and high-resolution digital surface and elevation models.Urban heat islands (UHI) are processed averaging hourly air temperatures over an entire year for each grid point, and comparing this average to the overall average in rural areas. UHI effects can then be correlated to high-resolution local climate zone maps and other local factors.Between 60-80 % of the urban area is modeled with an accuracy below 1 K for an hourly time step indicating that the approach may work well in different cities. However, the outcome may depend on the complexity of the cities. The model error decreases rapidly by increasing the number of spatially distributed sensor data used to train the model, from 0 to 70 sensors, and then plateaus with further increases. An accuracy below 1 K can be expected for more than 50 air temperature measurements within the investigated cities and the surrounding rural areas.&#160;A strong statistical air temperature model coupled with atmospheric boundary layer models (e.g. PALM-4U, MUKLIMO, FITNAH) will aid to generate highly resolved urban heat island prediction maps that help decision-makers to identify local heat islands easier. This will ensure that financial resources will be invested as efficiently as possible in mitigation actions.

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Clothing Urban Heat Islands with a Vegetative Cover to Combat Climate Change

Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability ◽

10.5958/2320-642x.2018.00002.9 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 16

Author(s):

Ayon Tarafdar ◽

Utkarsh Patnaik

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Urban Heat Islands ◽

Vegetative Cover ◽

Heat Islands ◽

Urban Heat ◽

Combat Climate Change

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Detailing an Improved Heat Transfer Model for Pavements

Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board ◽

10.1177/0361198121994847 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 036119812199484

Author(s):

James Bryce ◽

Arka Chattopadhyay ◽

Mehdi Esmaeilpour ◽

Zack E. Ihnat

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Heat Transfer ◽

Boundary Condition ◽

Thermal Model ◽

Urban Heat Islands ◽

Transfer Model ◽

Lower Boundary Condition ◽

Heat Islands ◽

Analysis And Design ◽

Urban Heat

Temperature profiles are a fundamental input into mechanistic-empirical pavement analysis and design, and the enhanced integrated climatic model (EICM) is the state-of-the-practice for calculating those profiles. The EICM has also been used in other applications, such as analysis to evaluate the effects of climate change on pavements and to estimate the effects of pavements on urban heat islands. The calculations in the EICM for pavement temperatures can be viewed as having two primary components that together act as a system: the thermal model describing conductance of temperatures throughout the pavement, and the boundary conditions that include the convective terms at the pavement surface, an energy balance model to predict the solar radiation at the surface of the pavement and a specified lower boundary condition (generally constant temperature at defined depth). As is shown in this paper, the current EICM models overpredict temperatures during hot times and in no-wind conditions, while also underpredicting (albeit to a lesser magnitude) during cold conditions. This result implies that the increases in pavement temperatures predicted to occur with climate change are likewise overestimated. Conversely, because the convection coefficient is incorrect, the predicted amount of energy contributing to urban heat islands will also not be correctly predicted using the current EICM models. Although improvements to the solar model are noted, this paper focuses on improvements to the thermal model and convective boundary condition using modern heat transfer principles and data from the Long-Term Pavement Performance database.

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Cities Partner to Prepare for Natural Hazards and Climate Change

Eos ◽

10.1029/2017eo077447 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Margaret Hurwitz ◽

Felipe Mandarino ◽

Dalia Kirschbaum

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Quality ◽

New York ◽

Sea Level Rise ◽

Sea Level ◽

Natural Hazards ◽

Urban Heat Islands ◽

Heat Islands ◽

Urban Heat

NASA-Rio-UCCRN Workshop on Sea Level Rise, Urban Heat Islands, and Water Quality; New York, 14–16 November 2016

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A study on the thermo-optical behaviour of phosphorescent coatings for passive cooling applications

E3S Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/e3sconf/202123806002 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 238 ◽

pp. 06002

Author(s):

Ioannis Kousis ◽

Claudia Fabiani ◽

Anna Laura Pisello

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Urban Heat Islands ◽

Shortwave Radiation ◽

Passive Cooling ◽

Optical Performance ◽

Optical Behaviour ◽

Heat Islands ◽

Solar Reflectance ◽

Unique Reflection ◽

Urban Heat

Climate change intensifies the Urban Heat Islands (UHI) in hundreds of cities around the globe. Even though tests on traditional cool materials have shown promising results in terms of UHI mitigation, novel advanced solutions are deemed necessary for strategically counteracting UHI. Unlike traditional materials, phosphorescent materials can not only reflect incident shortwave radiation but also reemit it back, i.e. the phenomenon of phosphorescence. Even though this unique reflection-reemission mechanism known as effective solar reflectance (ESR), has been widely tested for sustainable lightning applications, its cooling potential has been surprisingly overlooked. Here, we examine, in-lab, and numerically, the thermo-optical properties of several phosphorescent coatings of different colours and we evaluate their effective cooling potential. Results reveal that the phosphorescence mechanism could be effectively optimized for obtaining phosphorescent-based coatings with an improved optical performance and hence substantially mitigate surface overheating in the built environment.

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Mitigating Urban Heating in Dryland Cities: A Literature Review

Journal of Planning Literature ◽

10.1177/0885412219855779 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 34 (4) ◽

pp. 434-446

Author(s):

Stephen M. Wheeler ◽

Yaser Abunnasr ◽

John Dialesandro ◽

Eleni Assaf ◽

Sarine Agopian ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Literature Review ◽

Tree Species ◽

Urban Heat Islands ◽

Global Cities ◽

Heat Islands ◽

Water Tree ◽

Built Form ◽

Mediterranean Regions ◽

Urban Heat

This review analyzes literature regarding urban heating and urban heat islands (UHIs) in dryland cities. This topic is of widespread importance in the era of climate change since many global cities are in arid, semiarid, or Mediterranean regions. We first analyze the literature on dryland UHIs, finding major differences with those for temperate cities. We then review research on cooling strategies involving vegetation, built form, and materials. Finally, we consider planning dimensions. Overall, we find that the most sustainable cooling approach for dryland cities is likely to combine low-water tree species with dense, shade-producing built form and high-albedo materials.

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