Future changes in thermal comfort conditions over China based on multi-RegCM4 simulations
A set of high resolution (25 km) 21st century climate change projections using the regional climate model RegCM4 driven by four global model simulations were conducted over East Asia under the mid-range RCP4.5 scenario. In the present paper, the authors investigate the change in thermal comfort cond...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16742834.2018.1471578 |
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doaj-4efc29ad7ee247b89eaac97058aec8812021-03-02T09:19:43ZengKeAi Communications Co., Ltd.Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters1674-28342376-61232018-07-0111429129910.1080/16742834.2018.14715781471578Future changes in thermal comfort conditions over China based on multi-RegCM4 simulationsXue-Jie GAO0Jie WU1Ying SHI2Jia WU3Zhen-Yu HAN4Dong-Feng ZHANG5Yao TONG6Rou-Ke LI7Ying XU8Filippo GIORGI9Chinese Academy of SciencesChinese Academy of SciencesChina Meteorological AdministrationChina Meteorological AdministrationChina Meteorological AdministrationShanxi Climate CenterGaizhou Meteorological BureauChina Meteorological AdministrationChina Meteorological AdministrationThe Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical PhysicsA set of high resolution (25 km) 21st century climate change projections using the regional climate model RegCM4 driven by four global model simulations were conducted over East Asia under the mid-range RCP4.5 scenario. In the present paper, the authors investigate the change in thermal comfort conditions over china based on an ensemble of the projections, using the index of effective temperature (ET), which considers the aggregate effects of temperature, relative humidity, and wind on human thermal perception. The analysis also accounts for exposure as measured by distributed population amount scenarios. The authors find that the general increase in ET leads to a large increase in population exposure to very hot days (a China-aggregated six-fold increase in ‘person-days’ by the end of the 21st century. There is a decrease in cool, cold, and very cold person-days. Meanwhile, a decrease in comfortable day conditions by 22% person-days is found despite an increase in climate-based comfortable days. Analysis of the different contributions to the changes (climate, population, and interactions between the two) show that climate effects play a more important role in the hot end of the thermal comfort categories, while the population effects tend to be dominant in the cold categories. Thus, overall, even a mid-level warming scenario is found to increase the thermal stress over China, although there is a strong geographical dependence. The inclusion of population exposure strongly modulates the climate-only signal, which highlights the need for including socioeconomic factors in the assessment of risks associated with climate change.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16742834.2018.1471578Thermal comfort conditionsRegCMclimate changepopulation |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Xue-Jie GAO Jie WU Ying SHI Jia WU Zhen-Yu HAN Dong-Feng ZHANG Yao TONG Rou-Ke LI Ying XU Filippo GIORGI |
spellingShingle |
Xue-Jie GAO Jie WU Ying SHI Jia WU Zhen-Yu HAN Dong-Feng ZHANG Yao TONG Rou-Ke LI Ying XU Filippo GIORGI Future changes in thermal comfort conditions over China based on multi-RegCM4 simulations Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters Thermal comfort conditions RegCM climate change population |
author_facet |
Xue-Jie GAO Jie WU Ying SHI Jia WU Zhen-Yu HAN Dong-Feng ZHANG Yao TONG Rou-Ke LI Ying XU Filippo GIORGI |
author_sort |
Xue-Jie GAO |
title |
Future changes in thermal comfort conditions over China based on multi-RegCM4 simulations |
title_short |
Future changes in thermal comfort conditions over China based on multi-RegCM4 simulations |
title_full |
Future changes in thermal comfort conditions over China based on multi-RegCM4 simulations |
title_fullStr |
Future changes in thermal comfort conditions over China based on multi-RegCM4 simulations |
title_full_unstemmed |
Future changes in thermal comfort conditions over China based on multi-RegCM4 simulations |
title_sort |
future changes in thermal comfort conditions over china based on multi-regcm4 simulations |
publisher |
KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. |
series |
Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters |
issn |
1674-2834 2376-6123 |
publishDate |
2018-07-01 |
description |
A set of high resolution (25 km) 21st century climate change projections using the regional climate model RegCM4 driven by four global model simulations were conducted over East Asia under the mid-range RCP4.5 scenario. In the present paper, the authors investigate the change in thermal comfort conditions over china based on an ensemble of the projections, using the index of effective temperature (ET), which considers the aggregate effects of temperature, relative humidity, and wind on human thermal perception. The analysis also accounts for exposure as measured by distributed population amount scenarios. The authors find that the general increase in ET leads to a large increase in population exposure to very hot days (a China-aggregated six-fold increase in ‘person-days’ by the end of the 21st century. There is a decrease in cool, cold, and very cold person-days. Meanwhile, a decrease in comfortable day conditions by 22% person-days is found despite an increase in climate-based comfortable days. Analysis of the different contributions to the changes (climate, population, and interactions between the two) show that climate effects play a more important role in the hot end of the thermal comfort categories, while the population effects tend to be dominant in the cold categories. Thus, overall, even a mid-level warming scenario is found to increase the thermal stress over China, although there is a strong geographical dependence. The inclusion of population exposure strongly modulates the climate-only signal, which highlights the need for including socioeconomic factors in the assessment of risks associated with climate change. |
topic |
Thermal comfort conditions RegCM climate change population |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16742834.2018.1471578 |
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