scholarly journals A Comparative Study of the Physiological and Socio-Economic Vulnerabilities to Heat Waves of the Population of the Metropolis of Lyon (France) in a Climate Change Context

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 1004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucille Alonso ◽  
Florent Renard
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
The Social ◽  
Change Context ◽  
Eastern Periphery ◽  
Urban Heat

Increases in the frequency and intensity of heat waves are direct consequences of global climate change with a higher risk for urban populations due to the urban heat island effect. Reducing urban overheating is a priority, as is identifying the most vulnerable people to establish targeted and coordinated public health policies. There are many ways of understanding the concept of vulnerability and multiple definitions and applications exist in the literature. To date, however, nothing has been done on the territory of this study, the metropolis of Lyon (France). The objective is thus to construct two vulnerability indices: physiological, focusing on the organism’s capacities to respond to heat waves; and socio-economic, based on the social and economic characteristics and capacities of the community. To this end, two complementary methodologies have been implemented: the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and the PCA (Principal Component Analysis) with Varimax rotation, respectively. The results were then spatialized to the smallest demographic census unit in France. The areas highlighted differed due to conceptual and methodological differences: the highest physiological vulnerabilities are in the center while the socio-economic ones are in the eastern periphery of the urban area. The location of these areas will enable prevention campaigns to be carried out, targeted according to the publics concerned.

scholarly journals Co-occurrence of extreme ozone and heat waves in two cities from Morocco

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenza KHOMSI 1,2 ◽  
Houda NAJMI 2 ◽  
Zineb SOUHAILI 1
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Meteorological Factor ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Change Context

Temperature is the first meteorological factor to be directly involved in leading ozone (O3) extreme events. Generally, upward temperatures increase the probability of having exceedance in ozone adopted thresholds. In the global climate change context more frequent and/or persistent heat waves and extreme ozone (O3) episodes are likely to occur during in coming decades and a key question is about the coincidence and co-occurrence of these extremes. In this paper, using 7 years of surface temperature and air quality observations over two cities from Morocco (Casablanca and Marrakech) and implementing a percentile thresholding approach, we show that the extremes in temperature and ozone (O3) cluster together in many cases and that the outbreak of ozone events generally match the first or second days of heat waves. This co-occurrence of extreme episodes is highly impacted by humidity and may be overlapping large-scale episodes.

Analysis of heat wave features and urban heat island effect under climate change

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Tian ◽  
Klaus Fraedrich ◽  
Feng Ma
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Heat Island ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Urban Heat Island Effect ◽  
Heat Island ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
Urban Heat

<p>Extreme events such as heat waves occurred in urban have a large influence on human life due to population density. For urban areas, the urban heat island effect could further exacerbate the heat stress of heat waves. Meanwhile, the global climate change over the last few decades has changed the pattern and spatial distribution of local-scale extreme events. Commonly used climate models could capture broad-scale spatial changes in climate phenomena, but representing extreme events on local scales requires data with finer resolution. Here we present a deep learning based downscaling method to capture the localized near surface temperature features from climate models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) framework. The downscaling is based on super-resolution image processing methods which could build relationships between coarse and fine resolution. This downscaling framework will then be applied to future emission scenarios over the period 2030 to 2100. The influence of future climate change on the occurrence of heat waves in urban and its interaction with urban heat island effect for ten most densely populated cities in China are studied. The heat waves are defined based on air temperature and the urban heat island is measured by the urban-rural difference in 2m-height air temperature. Improvements in data resolution enhanced the utility for assessing the surface air temperature record. Comparisons of urban heat waves from multiple climate models suggest that near-surface temperature trends and heat island effects are greatly affected by global warming. High resolution climate data offer the potential for further assessment of worldwide urban warming influences.</p>

scholarly journals The impact of climate change will hit urban dwellers first – Can green infrastructure save us?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rüdiger Grote
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Urban Heat ◽  
The Impact

Two phenomena that can cause large numbers of premature human deaths have gained attention in the last years: heat waves and air pollution. These two effects have two things in common: They are closely related to climate change and they are particularly intense in urban areas. Urban areas are particular susceptible to these impacts because they can store lots of heat and have little opportunity for cooling off (also known as the urban heat island effect). In order to mitigate these impacts and to establish an environment that protects human health and improve well-being, implementation of green infrastructure – trees, green walls, and green roofs – is commonly proposed as a remedy. More trees, hedges and lawns are intuitively welcome by people living in cities for their beautifying effects, but to which degree can such greening actually counterbalance the expected effects of climate change? In this review I would like to investigate what science can offer to answer this question.

‘Civil skepticism’ and the social construction of knowledge: A case in dendroclimatology

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 821-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meritxell Ramírez-i-Ollé
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Construction Of Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Construction Of Knowledge ◽  
Blue Intensity

Early Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholars recognized that the social construction of knowledge depends on skepticism’s parasitic relationship to background expectations and trust. Subsequent generations have paid less empirical attention to skepticism in science and its relationship with trust. I seek to rehabilitate skepticism in STS – particularly, Merton’s view of skepticism as a scientific norm sustained by trust among status peers – with a study of what I call ‘civil skepticism’. The empirical grounding is a case in contemporary dendroclimatology and the development of a method (‘Blue Intensity’) for generating knowledge about climate change from trees. I present a sequence of four instances of civil skepticism involved in making Blue Intensity more resistant to critique, and hence credible (in laboratory experiments, workshops, conferences, and peer-review of articles). These skeptical interactions depended upon maintaining communal notions of civility among an increasingly extended network of mutually trusted peers through a variety of means: by making Blue Intensity complementary to existing methods used to study a diverse natural world (tree-ring patterns) and by contributing to a shared professional goal (the study of global climate change). I conclude with a sociological theory about the role of civil skepticism in constituting knowledge-claims of greater generality and relevance.

Bridging Theory and Practice

2019 ◽  
pp. 93-116
Author(s):  
Alix Dietzel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Transnational Governance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Governance Processes ◽  
Change Problem ◽  
Climate Change Governance

Chapter Four sets out the parameters for the cosmopolitan assessment of climate governance. The chapter first provides overview of the processes involved in global climate change governance: multilateral (United Nations Framework for the Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC) and transnational (cities, corporations, NGOs, sub-state authorities). Following this, Chapter Four outlines why actors in the UNFCCC and actors involved in transnational governance processes can be held responsible for bringing about a just response to the climate change problem. The chapter grounds the responsibility of these actors in their capability to enable the three demands of justice set out in Chapter Three by restructuring the social and political context. Finally, Chapter Four outlines a methodological framework to clarify how current practice will be assessed. This framework is based on a four-point hierarchy that can be used to investigate to what extent global governance actors enable each demand of justice.

Climate Change and the Health of Urban Populations

Urban Health ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 129-138
Author(s):  
Patrick L. Kinney
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Health ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Urban Resilience ◽  
Urban Populations ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Urban Heat ◽  
Risk Of Exposure

Global climate change represents one of the sentinel changes the world is facing and that will threaten population health in this century. In the context of urban health, climate change threatens to increase urban heat island effects, to change exposure to pollution, and to increase urban residents’ risk of exposure to natural disasters, among other phenomena. And yet urban innovation is central to the longer term solution to climate change from the development of innovative approaches that reduce cities’ carbon footprint to initiatives that increase urban resilience in the face of climate change threats. This chapter discusses the threat that climate change poses for urban populations and potential approaches that can mitigate this challenge toward improving urban health.

scholarly journals Pond Becomes a Lake: Challenges Posed by Climate Change in the Trans-Himalayan Regions of Nepal

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiban Mani Poudel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ecological Relationship ◽  
Change Context ◽  
Past Climate Variability

Satellite images, repeated photography, temperature and precipitation data, and other proxy scientific evidences support the claim that climate is changing rapidly in Nepal, including in the Trans-Himalayan regions of the country. Climate change in the Trans-Himalayan region of Nepal is altering the existing relations of functional socio-ecological system for generations. This ethnographic assessment of Nhāson village looks at the disturbance posed by climate change to the social and ecological relationship in reference to livestock management practices. It focuses on two thematic areas of communities’ verbalisation of issues and challenges faced by the mountain herders in the climate change context. This paper is the product of ethnographic study between the years 2012 and 2014 in Nhāson. The locals’ attachment to environment and witnesses of change is capable of telling the story on the disturbance of climate change in the social and ecological systems, contextually. The stories gathered during walking, herding, travelling, watching and observing of the places are “real stories” with insights into the past climate variability and fluctuation which is critically valuable to understand the environmental phenomena at times when scientific evidences are not sufficient. Ethnographic study can contribute in documenting the place and cultural specific stories as a powerful evidence to climate change and its impact on grounded social and ecological systems.

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