Identification

Title

Estimating heat‐related exposures and urban heat island impacts: A case study for the 2012 Chicago heatwave

Abstract

Accelerated urbanization increases both the frequency and intensity of heatwaves (HW) and urban heat islands (UHIs). An extreme HW event occurred in 2012 summer that caused temperatures of more than 40 degrees C in Chicago, Illinois, USA, which is a highly urbanized city impacted by UHIs. In this study, multiple numerical models, including the High Resolution Land Data Assimilation System (HRLDAS) and Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, were used to simulate the HW and UHI, and their performance was evaluated. In addition, sensitivity testing of three different WRF configurations was done to determine the impact of increasing model complexity in simulating urban meteorology. Model performances were evaluated based on the statistical performance metrics, the application of a multi-layer urban canopy model (MLUCM) helps WRF to provide the best performance in this study. HW caused rural temperatures to increase by similar to 4 degrees C, whereas urban Chicago had lower magnitude increases from the HW (similar to 2-3 degrees C increases). Nighttime UHI intensity (UHII) ranged from 1.44 to 2.83 degrees C during the study period. Spatiotemporal temperature fields were used to estimate the potential heat-related exposure and to quantify the Excessive Heat Factor (EHF). The EHF during the HW episode provides a risk map indicating that while urban Chicago had higher heat-related stress during this event, the rural area also had high risk, especially during nighttime in central Illinois. This study provides a reliable method to estimate spatiotemporal exposures for future studies of heat-related health impacts.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7qr51ph

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact