Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change on Heat Stress Under Relatively Dry and Wet Warm Conditions in a Semi‐Arid Urban Environment
Abstract This article investigates the effect of urban expansion and climate change impacts on heat stress (HS) for Arizona's (AZ; USA) two largest urban agglomerations, the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas, under relatively dry and moist warm conditions with the Weather Research and Forec...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2025-03-01
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| Series: | Earth's Future |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004983 |
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| author | Francisco Salamanca‐Palou Gisel Guzman‐Echavarría Jennifer Vanos Pope Moseley Marisa Elena Domino Matei Georgescu |
| author_facet | Francisco Salamanca‐Palou Gisel Guzman‐Echavarría Jennifer Vanos Pope Moseley Marisa Elena Domino Matei Georgescu |
| author_sort | Francisco Salamanca‐Palou |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract This article investigates the effect of urban expansion and climate change impacts on heat stress (HS) for Arizona's (AZ; USA) two largest urban agglomerations, the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas, under relatively dry and moist warm conditions with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)‐urban modeling system. We dynamically downscale two contemporary summers, one dry and one moist, relatively to their respective seasonal‐mean specific humidity across AZ. Urban expansion impacts on HS are assessed by performing two identical simulations for each contemporary summer using different land use‐land cover representations: one simulation with the current urban landscape, and one simulation replaces the urban cover with the region's most representative MODIS vegetation type. Climate change impacts on HS are evaluated by performing four additional future simulations, two via dynamical downscaling of relatively dry conditions (one summer under the RCP8.5 and one summer under the RCP4.5 emissions pathways) and two of relatively moist conditions (one summer for each RCP pathway). The selection of future summers is based on their respective seasonal‐mean specific humidity across AZ from an end‐of‐century analysis of 2086–2100. We characterize impacts on HS by examining changes in near‐surface air temperature, Heat Index (HI), and the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) across urban areas under dry and moist warm conditions. Our results demonstrate that climate change impacts on HS are not well captured by examining only the projected changes in air temperature and are dependent on the bioclimate index considered. Additionally, we apply a new human heat balance (HHB) approach to evaluate the number of hours per day that an acclimatized and non‐acclimatized person would experience uncompensable HS and compare these results (with the number of hours per day) that we obtain when the HI and UTCI surpass commonly used thresholds considered “dangerous” and of “extreme heat stress”, respectively. The HI and UTCI overestimate the number of hours per day that a healthy, acclimatized person would experience uncompensable HS and underestimate dangerous HS for a non‐acclimatized person under both dry and moist conditions, emphasizing that standard metrics may not produce the most informative physiological estimates of HS. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-25e5e4e4e20e46b6a25a273433f5e1fc |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2328-4277 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-03-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Earth's Future |
| spelling | doaj-art-25e5e4e4e20e46b6a25a273433f5e1fc2025-08-20T02:08:27ZengWileyEarth's Future2328-42772025-03-01133n/an/a10.1029/2024EF004983Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change on Heat Stress Under Relatively Dry and Wet Warm Conditions in a Semi‐Arid Urban EnvironmentFrancisco Salamanca‐Palou0Gisel Guzman‐Echavarría1Jennifer Vanos2Pope Moseley3Marisa Elena Domino4Matei Georgescu5Florida Institute of Technology FIT Melbourne FL USAUrban Climate Research Center ASU Tempe AZ USAUrban Climate Research Center ASU Tempe AZ USAUrban Climate Research Center ASU Tempe AZ USAUrban Climate Research Center ASU Tempe AZ USAUrban Climate Research Center ASU Tempe AZ USAAbstract This article investigates the effect of urban expansion and climate change impacts on heat stress (HS) for Arizona's (AZ; USA) two largest urban agglomerations, the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas, under relatively dry and moist warm conditions with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)‐urban modeling system. We dynamically downscale two contemporary summers, one dry and one moist, relatively to their respective seasonal‐mean specific humidity across AZ. Urban expansion impacts on HS are assessed by performing two identical simulations for each contemporary summer using different land use‐land cover representations: one simulation with the current urban landscape, and one simulation replaces the urban cover with the region's most representative MODIS vegetation type. Climate change impacts on HS are evaluated by performing four additional future simulations, two via dynamical downscaling of relatively dry conditions (one summer under the RCP8.5 and one summer under the RCP4.5 emissions pathways) and two of relatively moist conditions (one summer for each RCP pathway). The selection of future summers is based on their respective seasonal‐mean specific humidity across AZ from an end‐of‐century analysis of 2086–2100. We characterize impacts on HS by examining changes in near‐surface air temperature, Heat Index (HI), and the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) across urban areas under dry and moist warm conditions. Our results demonstrate that climate change impacts on HS are not well captured by examining only the projected changes in air temperature and are dependent on the bioclimate index considered. Additionally, we apply a new human heat balance (HHB) approach to evaluate the number of hours per day that an acclimatized and non‐acclimatized person would experience uncompensable HS and compare these results (with the number of hours per day) that we obtain when the HI and UTCI surpass commonly used thresholds considered “dangerous” and of “extreme heat stress”, respectively. The HI and UTCI overestimate the number of hours per day that a healthy, acclimatized person would experience uncompensable HS and underestimate dangerous HS for a non‐acclimatized person under both dry and moist conditions, emphasizing that standard metrics may not produce the most informative physiological estimates of HS.https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004983urbanization impactsclimate changeheat stress |
| spellingShingle | Francisco Salamanca‐Palou Gisel Guzman‐Echavarría Jennifer Vanos Pope Moseley Marisa Elena Domino Matei Georgescu Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change on Heat Stress Under Relatively Dry and Wet Warm Conditions in a Semi‐Arid Urban Environment Earth's Future urbanization impacts climate change heat stress |
| title | Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change on Heat Stress Under Relatively Dry and Wet Warm Conditions in a Semi‐Arid Urban Environment |
| title_full | Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change on Heat Stress Under Relatively Dry and Wet Warm Conditions in a Semi‐Arid Urban Environment |
| title_fullStr | Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change on Heat Stress Under Relatively Dry and Wet Warm Conditions in a Semi‐Arid Urban Environment |
| title_full_unstemmed | Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change on Heat Stress Under Relatively Dry and Wet Warm Conditions in a Semi‐Arid Urban Environment |
| title_short | Effects of Urbanization and Climate Change on Heat Stress Under Relatively Dry and Wet Warm Conditions in a Semi‐Arid Urban Environment |
| title_sort | effects of urbanization and climate change on heat stress under relatively dry and wet warm conditions in a semi arid urban environment |
| topic | urbanization impacts climate change heat stress |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004983 |
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