Spatio-temporal analysis of the extent of an extreme heat event

Evidence of global warming induced from the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere suggests more frequent warm days and heat waves. The concept of an extreme heat event (EHE), defined locally based on exceedance of a suitable local threshold, enables us to capture the notion of a period of persistent extremely high temperatures. Modeling for extreme heat events is customarily implemented using time series of temperatures collected at a set of locations. Since spatial dependence is anticipated in the occurrence of EHE’s, a joint model for the time series, incorporating spatial dependence is needed. Recent work by Schliep et al. (J R Stat Soc Ser A Stat Soc 184(3):1070–1092, 2021) develops a space-time model based on a point-referenced collection of temperature time series that enables the prediction of both the incidence and characteristics of EHE’s occurring at any location in a study region. The contribution here is to introduce a formal definition of the notion of the spatial extent of an extreme heat event and then to employ output from the Schliep et al. (J R Stat Soc Ser A Stat Soc 184(3):1070–1092, 2021) modeling work to illustrate the notion. For a specified region and a given day, the definition takes the form of a block average of indicator functions over the region. Our risk assessment examines extents for the Comunidad Autónoma de Aragón in northeastern Spain. We calculate daily, seasonal and decadal averages of the extents for two subregions in this comunidad. We generalize our definition to capture extents of persistence of extreme heat and make comparisons across decades to reveal evidence of increasing extent over time.

Communicating Heat-Health Information to the Public: Assessing Municipal Government Extreme Heat Event Website Content

Extreme heat events pose a threat to human health. Forecasting and warning strategies have been developed to mitigate heat-health hazards. Yet, studies have found that the public lacks knowledge about their heat-health risks and preventive actions to take to reduce risks. Local governmental websites are an important means to communicate preparedness to the public. The purpose of this study is to examine information provided to the public on municipal government webpages of the 10 most populous U.S. cities. A two-level document and content analyses were conducted. A direct content analysis was conducted using federal government websites and documents to create the Extreme Heat Event Public Response Rubric. The Rubric contains two broad categories of populations and actions that are further specified. The Rubric was then used to examine local government extreme heat event websites for the 10 most populous cities in the U.S. The examination of the local government sites found that information included on the websites failed to identify the breadth of populations at greater risk for adverse heat-health outcomes and omitted some recommended actions designed to prevent adverse heat-health events. Local governments often communicated concrete and simple content to the public but more complex information was not included on their websites.

Effect of Extreme Heatwaves on the Mortality and Cellular Immune Responses of Purplish Bifurcate Mussel Mytilisepta virgata (Wiegmann, 1837) (=Septifer virgatus) in Indoor Mesocosm Experiments

In the rocky intertidal environment, the frequency and duration of heatwaves have increased over the last decade, possibly due to global climate change. Heatwaves often result in lethal or sub-lethal disturbances in benthic animals by changing their metabolic activities. In this study, we investigated the impacts of extreme heatwave stress on the hemocyte functions of Mytilisepta virgata and subsequent mortality to gain a better understanding of the potential causes and consequences of mass mortality events in this mussel during summer. We discriminated three types of hemocytes in the hemolymph, granulocytes, hyalinocytes, and blast-like cells, using flow cytometry and revealed that granulocytes were the major hemocyte involved in cellular defensive activities, such as phagocytosis and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. For the experiment, mussels were exposed to a 40°C air temperature for 12 h per day over 5 days under laboratory conditions as a simulated semi-diurnal tidal cycle. Mortality began to occur within 3 days after beginning the experiment, and all mussels had died by the end of the experiment. Flow cytometry indicated that the mussels exposed to high air temperatures produced significantly more ROS than did the control mussels within 2 days after the onset of the experiment, which may have caused oxidative stress. Such high levels of ROS in the hemolymph increased DNA damage in hemocytes after 3 days of exposure and decreased the phagocytosis of hemocytes 4 days after the experiment began. The observed mortality and decline in immune capacity suggested that an extreme heat event occurring in the rocky intertidal ecosystem during summer could exert sublethal to lethal impacts on macrobenthic animals.

Importance of Microscale Climate Simulations in City Scale Overheating Assessments

This study demonstrates the importance of high-resolution climate simulations when conducting city-scale outdoor heat wave alert and indoor overheating assessments. This is done by modelling urban climate of the Ottawa and Montreal cities at 1 km and 25 km, typical for regional climate modelling respectively, over the summer of 2018 when an extreme heat event caused around 100 deaths in these cities. It is shown that urban climate characteristics (higher temperatures, lower wind speeds, lower relative humidity in the urban core than surroundings) are better simulated at 1 km than at 25 km spatial resolution. Indoor conditions are simulated for an archetype model of a single detached house using EnergyPlus software for two locations within the cities: a) city center and b) airport location. It is shown that the simulated indoor air temperature in the building is highly correlated with the outdoor air temperature. Furthermore, it is found that the maximum indoor air temperature difference of the city center and the airport can be as high as 8°C in Montreal and 9°C in Ottawa. Such intra-urban differences in overheating in buildings will be ignored if microscale simulations are not performed, highlighting their importance for building overheating assessments in cities.

Causes of the Record-Breaking Pacific Northwest Heatwave, Late June 2021

The extreme heat event that hit the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, southern British Columbia) at the end of June 2021 was 3 °C greater than the previous Seattle record of 39 °C; larger extremes of 49 °C were observed further inland that were 6 °C above previous record. There were hundreds of deaths over the region and loss of marine life and forests. At the large scale prior to the event, the polar vortex was split over the Arctic. A polar vortex instability center formed over the Bering Sea and then extended southward along the west coast of North America. The associated tropospheric trough (low geopotential heights) established a multi-day synoptic scale Omega Block (west-east oriented low/high/low geopotential heights) centered over the Pacific Northwest. Warming was sustained in the region due to subsidence/adiabatic heating and solar radiation, which were the main reasons for such large temperature extremes. The seasonal transition at the end of spring suggests the possibility of a southern excursion of a polar vortex/jet stream pair. Both the Pacific Northwest event in 2021 and the Siberian heatwave climax in June 2020 may be examples of crossing a critical state in large-scale atmospheric circulation variability.

Volatile chemical product emissions enhance ozone and modulate urban chemistry

Decades of air quality improvements have substantially reduced the motor vehicle emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Today, volatile chemical products (VCPs) are responsible for half of the petrochemical VOCs emitted in major urban areas. We show that VCP emissions are ubiquitous in US and European cities and scale with population density. We report significant VCP emissions for New York City (NYC), including a monoterpene flux of 14.7 to 24.4 kg ⋅ d−1 ⋅ km−2 from fragranced VCPs and other anthropogenic sources, which is comparable to that of a summertime forest. Photochemical modeling of an extreme heat event, with ozone well in excess of US standards, illustrates the significant impact of VCPs on air quality. In the most populated regions of NYC, ozone was sensitive to anthropogenic VOCs (AVOCs), even in the presence of biogenic sources. Within this VOC-sensitive regime, AVOCs contributed upwards of ∼20 ppb to maximum 8-h average ozone. VCPs accounted for more than 50% of this total AVOC contribution. Emissions from fragranced VCPs, including personal care and cleaning products, account for at least 50% of the ozone attributed to VCPs. We show that model simulations of ozone depend foremost on the magnitude of VCP emissions and that the addition of oxygenated VCP chemistry impacts simulations of key atmospheric oxidation products. NYC is a case study for developed megacities, and the impacts of VCPs on local ozone are likely similar for other major urban regions across North America or Europe.