The challenge of urban heat exposure under climate change: An analysis of cities in the Sustainable Healthy Urban Environments (SHUE) database

Milner, James, Harpham, Colin, Taylor, Jonathon, Davies, Mike, Le Quéré, Corinne ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2319-0452, Haines, Andy and Wilkinson, Paul (2017) The challenge of urban heat exposure under climate change: An analysis of cities in the Sustainable Healthy Urban Environments (SHUE) database. Climate, 5 (4). ISSN 2225-1154

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Abstract

The so far largely unabated emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) are expected to increase global temperatures substantially over this century. We quantify the patterns of increases for 246 globally-representative cities in the Sustainable Healthy Urban Environments (SHUE) database. We used an ensemble of 18 global climate models (GCMs) run under a low (RCP2.6) and high (RCP8.5) emissions scenario to estimate the increase in monthly mean temperatures by 2050 and 2100 based on 30-year averages. Model simulations were from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Annual mean temperature increases were 0.93 degrees Celsius by 2050 and 1.10 degrees Celsius by 2100 under RCP2.6, and 1.27 and 4.15 degrees Celsius under RCP8.5, but with substantial city-to-city variation. By 2100, under RCP2.6 no city exceeds an increase in Tmean > 2 degrees Celsius (relative to a 2017 baseline), while all do under RCP8.5, some with increases in Tmean close to, or even greater than, 7 degrees Celsius. The increases were greatest in cities of mid to high latitude, in humid temperate and dry climate regions, and with large seasonal variation in temperature. Cities are likely to experience large increases in hottest month mean temperatures under high GHG emissions trajectories, which will often present substantial challenges to adaptation and health protection.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: climate change,urban heat,temperature,sustainability,urban health,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
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Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 11 Jan 2018 09:30
Last Modified: 04 Mar 2024 17:39
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/65908
DOI: 10.3390/cli5040093

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