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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Main Authors: Xue-Jie GAO, Jie WU, Ying SHI, Jia WU, Zhen-Yu HAN, Dong-Feng ZHANG, Yao TONG, Rou-Ke LI, Ying XU, Filippo GIORGI
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. 2018-07-01
Series:Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16742834.2018.1471578
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spelling 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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