scholarly journals Is summer becoming more uncomfortable at Indian cities?

MAUSAM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-344
Author(s):  
A. K. SRIVASTAVA ◽  
M. M. DANDEKAR ◽  
S. R. KSHIRSAGAR ◽  
S. K. DIKSHIT

The recent decades have witnessed significant increase in temperatures both on global and regional scale. Some specific locations in India like Orissa and Andhra Pradesh have experienced unusually heat wave conditions resulting in increase in heat stress associated illnesses and mortality. There is a general belief that cities have become more uncomfortable during summer, particularly in the recent years. The present study is an attempt to examine the trend in discomfort over the Indian cities measured by an index (Thermo-Hygrometric Index: THI). Results show that in general there is an increasing trend in the discomfort from the last 10 days of April to June over most of the Indian cities. Further, frequency and maximum length of continuous periods exceeding abnormal discomfort values over a number of stations are steadily increasing particularly during May and June.

Author(s):  
A. Walzer ◽  
T. Steiner ◽  
B. Spangl ◽  
E. Koschier

AbstractClimate change models predict that the frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves will increase in the next decades. Heat waves can have profound impact on the reproduction of biocontrol agents ranging from postponing oviposition to manipulating offspring quantity via egg number and quality via egg size. Such species-specific responses of biocontrol agents to heat stress may also affect their success in controlling the target pest. Here, we evaluated the predation and reproductive performance of the two spider mite predators Phytoseiulus persimilis and Neoseiulus womersleyi exposed to simulated mild, moderate and extreme heat wave conditions over three days. Irrespective of heat wave conditions, all N. womersleyi females survived, whereas 12% of the P. persimilis females died. Both species responded to heat stress via plastic modifications resulting in increased predation rates and smaller egg sizes. Significantly more P. persimilis females postponed oviposition during the experimental phase than N. womersleyi. The deposited egg number of Phytoseiulus persimilis was not affected by heat wave conditions. On the contrary, the reproductive output of N. womersleyi was a function of temperature, i.e., the higher the temperature, the higher the number of deposited eggs. These findings indicate that P. persimilis is more heat sensitive in relation to reproduction than N. womersleyi. However, further investigations of heat wave effects on other fitness-related traits and their consequences at population level are needed to find out whether N. womersleyi is an alternative or supplement to P. persimilis as spider mite control agent under heat waves.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 23793-23828
Author(s):  
D. N. Bernstein ◽  
J. D. Neelin ◽  
Q. B. Li ◽  
D. Chen

Abstract. Geoengineering applications by injection of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere are under consideration as a measure of last resort to counter global warming. Here adaptation to a potential regional scale application to offset the impacts of heat waves is critically examined. The effect of regional scale sulfate aerosol emission over California in each of two days of the July 2006 heat wave using the Weather Research and Forecasting model with fully coupled chemistry (WRF-Chem) is used to quantify potential reductions in surface temperature as a function of emission rates in the lower stratosphere. Over the range considered, afternoon temperature reductions scale almost linearly with injections. Local meteorological factors yield geographical differences in surface air temperature sensitivity. For emission rates of approximately 30 μg m−2 s−1 of sulfate aerosols (with standard WRF-Chem size distribution) over the region, temperature decreases of around 7 °C result during the middle part of the day over the Central Valley, one of the hardest hit by the heat wave. Regions more ventilated with oceanic air such as Los Angeles have slightly smaller reductions. The length of the hottest part of the day is also reduced. Advection effects on the aerosol cloud must be more carefully forecast for smaller injection regions. Verification of the impacts could be done via measurements of differences in reflected and surface downward shortwave. Such regional geoengineering applications with specific near-term target effects but smaller cost and side effects could potentially provide a means of testing larger scale applications. However, design trade-offs differ from global applications and the size of the required injections and the necessity of injection close to the target region raise substantial concerns. The evaluation of this regional scale application is thus consistent with global model evaluations emphasizing that mitigation via reduction of fossil fuels remains preferable to considering geoengineering with sulfate aerosols.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 5969-5995
Author(s):  
C. C. van Heerwaarden ◽  
A. J. Teuling

Abstract. This study investigates the difference in land–atmosphere interactions between grassland and forest during typical heat wave conditions in order to understand the controversial results of Teuling et al. (2010) (T10, hereafter), who have found the systematic occurrence of higher sensible heat fluxes over forest than over grassland during heat wave conditions. With a simple, but accurate coupled land–atmosphere model, we are able to reproduce the findings of T10 for both normal summer and heat wave conditions, and to carefully explore the sensitivity of the coupled land–atmosphere system to changes in incoming radiation and early-morning temperature. Our results emphasize the importance of fast processes during the onset of heat waves, since we are able to explain the results of T10 without having to take into account changes in soil moisture. In order to disentangle the contribution of differences in several static and dynamic properties between forest and grassland, we have performed an experiment in which new land use types are created that are equal to grassland, but with one of its properties replaced by that of forest. From these, we conclude that the closure of stomata in the presence of dry air is by far the most important process in creating the different behavior of grassland and forest during the onset of a heat wave. However, we conclude that for a full explanation of the results of T10 also the other properties (albedo, roughness and the ratio of minimum stomatal resistance to leaf-area index) play an important, but indirect role; their influences mainly consist of strengthening the feedback that leads to the closure of the stomata by providing more energy that can be converted into sensible heat. The model experiment also confirms that, in line with the larger sensible heat flux, higher atmospheric temperatures occur over forest.


2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. A73.2-A73
Author(s):  
Matthias Otto ◽  
Tord Kjellstrom ◽  
Bruno Lemke

Exposure to extreme heat negatively affects occupational health. Heat stress indices like Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) combine temperature and humidity and allow quantifying the climatic impact on human physiology and clinical health. Multi-day periods of high heat stress (aka. heat waves) affect occupational health and productivity independently from the absolute temperature levels; e.g. well-documented heat-waves in Europe caused disruption, hospitalisations and deaths (2003 French heat wave: more than 1000 extra deaths, 15–65 years, mainly men) even though the temperatures were within the normal range of hotter countries.Climate change is likely to increase frequency and severity of periods of high heat stress. However, current global grid-cell based climate models are not designed to predict heat waves, neither in terms of severity or frequency.By analysing 37 years of historic daily heat index data from almost 5000 global weather stations and comparing them to widely used grid-cell based climate model outputs over the same period, our research explores methods to assess the frequency and intensity of heat waves as well as the associated occupational health effects at any location around the world in the future.Weather station temperature extreme values (WBGT) for the 3 hottest days in 30 years exceed the mean WBGT of the hottest month calculated from climate models in the same grid-cell by about 2 degrees in the tropics but by 10 degrees at higher latitudes in temperate climate regions.Our model based on the relationship between actual recorded periods of elevated heat-stress and grid-cell based climate projections, in combination with population and employment projections, can quantify national and regional productivity loss and health effects with greater certainty than is currently the case.


2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Srikala ◽  
I. Bhavani Devi ◽  
T. Ananda

There was an increasing trend in the prices of chillies in the selected market and was found to be statistically significant at 5 per cent level of significance. The seasonal index was maximum in December with 108.52, while in November it was with 104.60 and the price indices ranged from 92.52 to 102.94. Only one cycle was observed which had lasted for four years. That chilli prices are subjected to high irregular variations during the period of study.


2011 ◽  
Vol 279 (1728) ◽  
pp. 543-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. R. Heath ◽  
D. C. Speirs

Following the repeal in 1962 of a long-standing ban on trawling, yields of demersal fish from the Firth of Clyde, southwest Scotland, increased to a maximum in 1973 and then declined until the directed fishery effectively ceased in the early 2000s. Since then, the only landings of demersal fish from the Firth have been by-catch in the Norway lobster fishery. We analysed changes in biomass density, species diversity and length structure of the demersal fish community between 1927 and 2009 from scientific trawl surveys, and related these to the fishery harvesting rate. As yields collapsed, the community transformed from a state in which biomass was distributed across numerous species (high species evenness) and large maximum length taxa were common, to one in which 90 per cent of the biomass was vested in one species (whiting), and both large individuals and large maximum length species were rare. Species evenness recovered quickly once the directed fishery ceased, but 10 years later, the community was still deficient in large individuals. The changes partly reflected events at a larger regional scale but were more extreme. The lag in response with respect to fishing has implications for attempts at managing a restoration of the ecosystem.


2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 11181-11207 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Uno ◽  
Y. He ◽  
T. Ohara ◽  
K. Yamaji ◽  
J.-I. Kurokawa ◽  
...  

Abstract. Systematic analyses of interannual and seasonal variations of tropospheric NO2 vertical column densities (VCDs) based on GOME satellite data and the regional scale chemical transport model (CTM), Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ), are presented over eastern Asia between 1996 and June 2003. A newly developed year-by-year emission inventory (REAS) was used in CMAQ. The horizontal distribution of annual averaged GOME NO2 VCDs generally agrees well with the CMAQ results. However, CMAQ/REAS results underestimate the GOME retrievals with factors of 2–4 over polluted industrial regions such as Central East China (CEC), a major part of Korea, Hong Kong, and central and western Japan. For the Japan region, GOME and CMAQ NO2 data show good agreement with respect to interannual variation and show no clear increasing trend. For CEC, GOME and CMAQ NO2 data show good agreement and indicate a very rapid increasing trend from 2000. Analyses of the seasonal cycle of NO2 VCDs show that GOME data have systematically larger dips than CMAQ NO2 during February–April and September–November. Sensitivity experiments with fixed emission intensity reveal that the detection of emission trends from satellite in fall or winter have a larger error caused by the variability of meteorology. Examination during summer time and annual averaged NO2 VCDs are robust with respect to variability of meteorology and are therefore more suitable for analyses of emission trends. Analysis of recent trends of annual emissions in China shows that the increasing trends of 1996–1998 and 2000–2002 for GOME and CMAQ/REAS show good agreement, but the rate of increase by GOME is approximately 10–11% yr−1 after 2000; it is slightly steeper than CMAQ/REAS (8–9% yr−1). The greatest difference was apparent between the years 1998 and 2000: CMAQ/REAS only shows a few percentage points of increase, whereas GOME gives a greater than 8% yr−1 increase. The exact reason remains unclear, but the most likely explanation is that the emission trend based on the Chinese emission related statistics underestimates the rapid growth of emissions.


2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 216
Author(s):  
Eva Lopez-Fornieles ◽  
Guilhem Brunel ◽  
Florian Rancon ◽  
Belal Gaci ◽  
Maxime Metz ◽  
...  

Recent literature reflects the substantial progress in combining spatial, temporal and spectral capacities for remote sensing applications. As a result, new issues are arising, such as the need for methodologies that can process simultaneously the different dimensions of satellite information. This paper presents PLS regression extended to three-way data in order to integrate multiwavelengths as variables measured at several dates (time-series) and locations with Sentinel-2 at a regional scale. Considering that the multi-collinearity problem is present in remote sensing time-series to estimate one response variable and that the dataset is multidimensional, a multiway partial least squares (N-PLS) regression approach may be relevant to relate image information to ground variables of interest. N-PLS is an extension of the ordinary PLS regression algorithm where the bilinear model of predictors is replaced by a multilinear model. This paper presents a case study within the context of agriculture, conducted on a time-series of Sentinel-2 images covering regional scale scenes of southern France impacted by the heat wave episode that occurred on 28 June 2019. The model has been developed based on available heat wave impact data for 107 vineyard blocks in the Languedoc-Roussillon region and multispectral time-series predictor data for the period May to August 2019. The results validated the effectiveness of the proposed N-PLS method in estimating yield loss from spectral and temporal attributes. The performance of the model was evaluated by the R2 obtained on the prediction set (0.661), and the root mean square of error (RMSE), which was 10.7%. Limitations of the approach when dealing with time-series of large-scale images which represent a source of challenges are discussed; however, the N–PLS regression seems to be a suitable choice for analysing complex multispectral imagery data with different spectral domains and with a clear temporal evolution, such as an extreme weather event.


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