Climate Change and Environmental Awareness: a Study of Energy Consumption among the Residents of Abu Dhabi, UAE

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 564-582
Author(s):  
Latifa Saeed Al Blooshi ◽  
Taoufik Saleh Ksiksi ◽  
Ali Soliman Gargoum ◽  
Mohammed Aboelenein
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Water Consumption ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Nonparametric Tests ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Energy Prices ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
Al Ain ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The rising levels of greenhouse gases (GHG) have caused great concern about the impact of climate change on almost every aspect of our lives. Urban expansion and changing lifestyles have led to an increase in energy consumption. The main aim of this empirical study is to explore the environmental and socioeconomic impact of climate change on the energy consumption of a stratified random sample of the residents of three main regions in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi city, Al-Ain city and AlDhafra) and to investigate residents’ awareness of this change. Data was gathered from 321 residents from these three regions. The response rate for the survey was 97 percent. Descriptive statistical methods and nonparametric tests were used to compare quantitative data at different levels of the sociodemographic variables. The findings revealed that more than 50 percent of the participants agreed that climate change is controlling their energy and water consumption. About 94 percent of participants believe that their energy consumption is increasing, while 44 percent of the sample spent 30 percent more money on water and electricity bills in the past 20 years. About 50 percent of participants consider moving to another city if energy prices increased due to energy consumption and the effects of climate change. Respondents over age of 40 tend to be more conscious and aware of climate change. Eighty-eight percent of the Emiratis believe that weather and climate change are affecting their energy and water consumption.

scholarly journals Long-Term Prediction of Weather for Analysis of Residential Building Energy Consumption in Australia

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (16) ◽  
pp. 4805
Author(s):  
Shu Chen ◽  
Zhengen Ren ◽  
Zhi Tang ◽  
Xianrong Zhuo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Space Heating ◽  
Building Energy Consumption ◽  
Climate Zones ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
The Impact

Globally, buildings account for nearly 40% of the total primary energy consumption and are responsible for 20% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Energy consumption in buildings is increasing with the increasing world population and improving standards of living. Current global warming conditions will inevitably impact building energy consumption. To address this issue, this report conducted a comprehensive study of the impact of climate change on residential building energy consumption. Using the methodology of morphing, the weather files were constructed based on the typical meteorological year (TMY) data and predicted data generated from eight typical global climate models (GCMs) for three representative concentration pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5) from 2020 to 2100. It was found that the most severe situation would occur in scenario RCP8.5, where the increase in temperature will reach 4.5 °C in eastern Australia from 2080–2099, which is 1 °C higher than that in other climate zones. With the construction of predicted weather files in 83 climate zones all across Australia, ten climate zones (cities)—ranging from heating-dominated to cooling-dominated regions—were selected as representative climate zones to illustrate the impact of climate change on heating and cooling energy consumption. The quantitative change in the energy requirements for space heating and cooling, along with the star rating, was simulated for two representative detached houses using the AccuRate software. It could be concluded that the RCP scenarios significantly affect the energy loads, which is consistent with changes in the ambient temperature. The heating load decreases for all climate zones, while the cooling load increases. Most regions in Australia will increase their energy consumption due to rising temperatures; however, the energy requirements of Adelaide and Perth would not change significantly, where the space heating and cooling loads are balanced due to decreasing heating and increasing cooling costs in most scenarios. The energy load in bigger houses will change more than that in smaller houses. Furthermore, Brisbane is the most sensitive region in terms of relative space energy changes, and Townsville appears to be the most sensitive area in terms of star rating change in this study. The impact of climate change on space building energy consumption in different climate zones should be considered in future design strategies due to the decades-long lifespans of Australian residential houses.

scholarly journals Climate change in the UAE: Modeling air temperature using ARIMA and STI across four bio-climatic zones

F1000Research ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 973
Author(s):  
Taoufik Saleh Ksiksi ◽  
Latifa Saeed Al-Blooshi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Moving Average ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Climatic Regions ◽  
Box Plots ◽  
Al Ain ◽  
The Impact

Background: Standardizing climate-related indices and models across spatial and temporal scales presents a challenge. Especially when predicting climatic conditions in the era of climate change. The present work aims to assess the use of ARIMA (Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average) modeling approach coupled with STI (Standardized Temperature Index) to predict temperature anomalies across four bio-climatic regions within the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Methods: We used monthly temperature data from NOAA Land-Based Station Data for Abu Dhabi, Al-Ain, Dubai and Sharjah. ARIMA modeling and STI assessment of climatic events were used to predict and study the dynamics of climate of the four zones. The use of such forecasting powers was intended for an ultimate aim to study the impact of climate change on land use and land cover changes. Results: Data were not auto-correlated as shown by the Box-Ljung test. Additionally, the box-plots showed that Abu Dhabi had the highest median temperature. The ARIMA forecasting suggested that Dubai is predicted to have increasing trend of average temperatures until 2030. "Extremely hot" events were highest for Al-Ain (i.e. 9), followed by Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah. Dubai had the highest occurrences of "Moderately hot" events, when compared to all other studied zones. Further, events classified as "very cold" were in the order of 20, 10, and 8, for Dubai, Sharjah, and for each of Abu Dhabi and Al-Ain, respectively. Conclusions: The temperature is predicted to increase in Dubai and Sharjah, with each representing a different bio-climatic zone. This was also reflected in the STI assessment of the historical temperature.  "Moderately hot" and "very cold" events for Dubai were the highest as compared to the other studied zones in the UAE. It is therefore believed that ARIMA, coupled with STI, may be a valid approach to forecast temperature and analyse extreme events.

Quantifying the impact of climate change on Food-Energy-Water nexus interactions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanish Dadool ◽  
Sai Jagadeesh Gaddam ◽  
Prasanna Venkatesh Sampath
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Reference Evapotranspiration ◽  
Crop Water ◽  
Water Requirements ◽  
Food Energy ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
Crop Water Requirements ◽  
The Impact

<p>Increasing anthropogenic stresses have challenged the global population's ability to meet the growing demands of food, energy, and water (FEW). With the population set to hit 9 billion by 2050, it becomes indispensable to manage these three vital resources sustainably. Moreover, climate change is expected to have adverse consequences on agriculture, which is one of the primary occupations in developing countries like India. Extreme weather events caused by climate change could impact agricultural productivity severely, affecting economic-food-water-energy security. Hence, there is a dire need to study the impact of climate on agricultural production and its supporting resources – water and energy. Although studying the nexus between FEW is gaining attention lately, evaluating the future FEW interactions in the agricultural sector with an emphasis on climate change is missing. Therefore, this study employs a data-intensive approach to quantify the current and future FEW interactions under the impact of climate change.</p><p>First, FAO's CROPWAT 8.0 model was used to estimate crop water requirements for major crops like paddy, sugarcane, groundnut, cotton, and maize in the study area of Andhra Pradesh state, India. CROPWAT uses a soil water balance approach that requires information about several datasets like evapotranspiration, rainfall, soil, and crop information. Massive datasets such as farm-level agricultural data, station-wise rainfall data, and reference evapotranspiration data were incorporated into the model. Second, we calculate the future crop water requirements using future rainfall and temperature datasets, available till 2095, from Global Climate Models (GCMs) under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 emission scenario. To achieve this at the district-scale, we downscaled the information regarding temperature using the delta change method and applied the Thornthwaite method to estimate the reference evapotranspiration. Then, energy consumed by each crop in every district was quantified. Third, we estimated the current and future FEW interactions using the commonly employed two-at-one-time methodology.</p><p>Results indicated that water-intensive crops like paddy and sugarcane account for most groundwater and energy consumption. Southern districts of the state consume relatively more groundwater and energy than the northern regions. Further, high water-intensive crops like paddy were being cultivated in several dry regions, furthering the groundwater resources depletion and rising energy costs. For instance, in Kurnool district, the irrigation water requirements for paddy increased by almost 20% from the 2020s (644 mm) to the 2090s (772 mm). Clearly, such an increase can be attributed to a changing climate causing increased evapotranspiration. The resulting increase in groundwater and energy consumption, has the potential to endanger food and water security in countries like India. The approach outlined in this study also allows us to identify vulnerable hotspots that would enable policymakers to design effective adaptation strategies in the agricultural sector. The synergistic benefits offered by FEW nexus approaches have the potential to ensure food security at local and global scales.</p>

scholarly journals Impact of Global Warming in Subtropical Climate Buildings: Future Trends and Mitigation Strategies

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 6188
Author(s):  
Marta Videras Rodríguez ◽  
Antonio Sánchez Cordero ◽  
Sergio Gómez Melgar ◽  
José Manuel Andújar Márquez
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Electricity Demand ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Subtropical Climate ◽  
Future Trends ◽  
Building Energy Consumption ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
The Impact

The growing concern about global climate change extends to different professional sectors. In the building industry, the energy consumption of buildings becomes a factor susceptible to change due to the direct relationship between the outside temperature and the energy needed to cool and heat the internal space. This document aims to estimate the energy consumption of a Minimum Energy Building (MEB) in different scenarios—past, present, and future—in the subtropical climate typical of seaside cities in Southern Spain. The building energy consumption has been predicted using dynamic building energy simulation software tools. Projected climate data were obtained in four time periods (Historical, the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s), based on four emission scenarios defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): B1, B2, A2, A1F1. This methodology has been mathematically complemented to obtain data in closer time frames (2025 and 2030). In addition, different mitigation strategies have been proposed to counteract the impact of climate change in the distant future. The different energy simulations carried on show clearly future trends of growth in total building energy consumption and how current building designers could be underestimating the problem of air conditioning needs in the subtropical zone. Electricity demand for heating is expected to decrease almost completely, while electricity demand for cooling increases considerably. The changes predicted are significant in all scenarios and periods, concluding an increase of between 28–51% in total primary energy consumption during the building life cycle. The proposed mitigation strategies show improvements in energy demands in a range of 11–14% and they could be considered in the initial stages of project design or incorporated in the future as the impact of climate change becomes more pronounced.

scholarly journals The Impact of Climate Change on Passenger Vehicle Fuel Consumption: Evidence from U.S. Panel Data

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 4460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hocheol Jeon
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Panel Data ◽  
Fuel Consumption ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Gasoline Consumption ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Climate change is around us today and will affect human life in many ways. More frequent extreme weather events raise mortality and car accident rates, global warming leads to longer growing seasons for crops, which may change farmers’ crop choices, and the relationship between energy demand in residential buildings and weather is widely investigated. In this paper, we focus on the impact of weather on energy consumption, in particular, gasoline consumption through the more frequent use of both vehicles themselves and the air conditioner of the vehicle that decreases fuel economy, which has not been paid enough attention in the literature. We estimate the relationship between fuel consumption and weather using unique U.S. panel data. We find that hot days increase gasoline consumption, but in contrast to the results of residential energy consumption literature, there is no statistically significant effect on cold weather. With climate prediction data from General Circulation Models (GCMs), we simulate the impact of climate change on fuel energy consumption. The results show that the fuel consumption in the transportation sector may increase by up to 4% under the “business-as-usual” (RCP 8.5) scenario. Also, climate change has heterogeneous impacts across the continental United States.

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