Fredrik Lindberg

Thermal Comfort and Outdoor Activity in Japanese Urban Public Places

Subjective thermal comfort and outdoor activity in a park and a square in a satellite city northeast of Tokyo were investigated through structured interviews, observations, and comprehensive micrometeorological measurements. Results showed that the park was on an average 1.1°C cooler than the square. The relatively warmer thermal conditions in the square in comparison to the park resulted in a heat load of greater intensity for humans in the square. In general, there was a low relation between the thermal environment and the use of the two places in terms of total attendance. However, the use of the park was influenced more by the thermal conditions than by the use of the square, which can mainly be attributed to the different functions of the two places. Finally, examples of the differences between the use of the sun, the attitudes toward it, and outdoor exposure in Japan and Sweden are highlighted and discussed.

Psychological mechanisms in outdoor place and weather assessment: towards a conceptual model.

The general aim has been to illuminate the psychological mechanisms involved in outdoor place and weather assessment. This reasoning was conceptualized in a model, tentatively proposing direct and indirect links of influence in an outdoor place–human relationship. The model was subsequently tested by an empirical study, performed in a Nordic city, on the impact of weather and personal factors on participants’ perceptual and emotional estimations of outdoor urban places. In line with our predictions, we report significant influences of weather parameters (air temperature, wind, and cloudlessness) and personal factors (environmental attitude and age) on participants’ perceptual and emotional estimations of outdoor urban places. All this is a modest, yet significant, step towards an understanding of the psychology of outdoor place and weather assessment.

Local-Scale Urban Meteorological Parameterization Scheme (LUMPS): Longwave Radiation Parameterization and Seasonality-Related Developments

Recent developments to the Local-scale Urban Meteorological Parameterization Scheme (LUMPS), a simple model able to simulate the urban energy balance, are presented. The major development is the coupling of LUMPS to the Net All-Wave Radiation Parameterization (NARP). Other enhancements include that the model now accounts for the changing availability of water at the surface, seasonal variations of active vegetation, and the anthropogenic heat flux, while maintaining the need for only commonly available meteorological observations and basic surface characteristics. The incoming component of the longwave radiation (LY) in NARP is improved through a simple relation derived using cloud cover observations from a ceilometer collected in central London, England. The new LY formulation is evaluated with two independent multiyear �

Characteristics of the mean radiant temperature in high latitude cities—implications for sensitive climate planning applications

Knowledge of how the mean radiant temperature (Tmrt) is affected by factors such as location, climate and urban setting contributes to the practice of climate sensitive planning. This paper examines how Tmrt varies within an urban setting and how it is influenced by cloudiness. In addition, variations of Tmrt in three high latitude cities are investigated in order to analyse the impact of geographical context and climate conditions. Results showed large spatial variations between sunlit and shaded areas during clear weather conditions, with the highest values of Tmrt close to sunlit walls and the lowest values in the areas shaded by buildings and vegetation. As cloudiness increases, the spatial pattern is altered and the differences are reduced. The highest Tmrt under cloudy conditions is instead found in open areas where the proportion of shortwave diffuse radiation from the sky vault is high. A regional comparison between three Swedish coastal cities showed that Tmrt during summer is similar regardless of latitudinal location. On the other hand, large differences in Tmrt during winter were found. Shadows, both from buildings and vegetation are the most effective measure to reduce extreme values of Tmrt. However, extensive areas of shadow are usually not desired within outdoor urban environments at high latitude cities. One solution is to create diverse outdoor urban spaces in terms of shadow and also ventilation. This would provide individuals with access to a choice of thermal environments which they can use to assist their thermal regulation, based on personal needs and desires.

Influence of ground surface characteristics on the mean radiant temperature in urban areas.

The effect of variations in land cover on mean radiant temperature (Tmrt) is explored through a simple scheme developed within the radiation model SOLWEIG. Outgoing longwave radiation is parameterised using surface temperature observations on a grass and an asphalt surface, whereas outgoing shortwave radiation is modelled through variations in albedo for the different surfaces. The influence of ground surface materials on Tmrt is small compared to the effects of shadowing. Nevertheless, altering ground surface materials could contribute to a reduction in Tmrt to reduce the radiant load during heat-wave episodes in locations where shadowing is not an option. Evaluation of the new scheme suggests that despite its simplicity it can simulate the outgoing fluxes well, especially during sunny conditions. However, it underestimates at night and in shadowed locations. One grass surface used to develop the parameterisation, with very different characteristics compared to an evaluation grass site, caused Tmrt to be underestimated. The implications of using high temporal resolution (e.g. 15 minutes) meteorological forcing data under partly cloudy conditions are demonstrated even for fairly proximal sites.

Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor - an extensive tool for climate services in urban areas

The city based climate service tool UMEP (Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor) is a coupled modelling system that combines models essential for urban climate processes and is developed as an extensive QGIS plugin. An application is presented to illustrate its potential, specifically of the identification of heat waves and cold waves in cities. The tool has broad utility for applications related to outdoor thermal comfort, urban energy consumption, climate change mitigation etc. It includes tools to: enable users to input atmospheric and surface data from multiple sources, prepare meteorological data for use in urban areas, undertake simulations and consider scenarios, and compare and visualize different combinations of climate indicators. ∗Corresponding author Email address: fredrikl@gvc.gu.se (Fredrik Lindberg) Submitted to FOSS4G 2017 Conference Proceedings, Boston, USA. September 20, 2017 FOSS4G 2017 Academic Program Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor

Uncertainties in Tidally Adjusted Estimates of Sea Level Rise Flooding (Bathtub Model) for the Greater London

Sea-level rise (SLR) from global warming may have severe consequences for coastal cities, particularly when combined with predicted increases in the strength of tidal surges. Predicting the regional impact of SLR flooding is strongly dependent on the modelling approach and accuracy of topographic data. Here, the areas under risk of sea water flooding for London boroughs were quantified based on the projected SLR scenarios reported in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth assessment report (AR5) and UK climatic projections 2009 (UKCP09) using a tidally-adjusted bathtub modelling approach. Medium- to very high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) are used to evaluate inundation extents as well as uncertainties. Depending on the SLR scenario and DEMs used, it is estimated that 3%–8% of the area of Greater London could be inundated by 2100. The boroughs with the largest areas at risk of flooding are Newham, Southwark, and Greenwich. The differences in inundation areas estimated from a digital terrain model and a digital surface model are much greater than the root mean square error differences observed between the two data types, which may be attributed to processing levels. Flood models from SRTM data underestimate the inundation extent, so their results may not be reliable for constructing flood risk maps. This analysis provides a broad-scale estimate of the potential consequences of SLR and uncertainties in the DEM-based bathtub type flood inundation modelling for London boroughs.

Can participants predict where ambulance-requiring cases occur at a half marathon?

Despite endurance races leading to a substantial number of ambulance‐requiring cases (ARC), little is known regarding where they occur, meaning that knowing where to place medical teams, ambulance pick‐up points, etc, is difficult. This article investigates whether the location of ARCs can be identified by race participants.

LUCY: Large scale Urban Consumption of Energy

Model and datasets to document changes in global anthropogenic heat flux (QF) for spatial (30′′ × 30′′ to 0.5° × 0.5°) resolution and temporal coverage (historical, current and future). See further details in the Lindberg et al. publications linked from this record.

PA 13-2-0532 Testing a novel method for identifying where serious medical encounters occur at marathons in order to improve medical preparedness and runners’ safety

During the last decade, an increasing global popularity of endurance events has been seen, with a particular increase in the number of both half and full city marathons. Although events that promote physical activity are important, particularly from a public health perspective, endurance events also lead to a considerable number of medical emergencies. Despite this, very little is known regarding where serious life-threatening medical encounters (SLTMEs) occur during a race. Also, it is not known if the locations coincide with where runners experience the race as the most exhausting. Using the world’s largest half marathon (Gothenburg half marathon) as a case, SLTME data collected from the local ambulance provider (over 7 years), and data from runners’ experiences (n=237) is presented. Level of agreement tests are performed and, using the runners’ experiences as a template, specific high-risk clusters are presented. SLTMEs are shown to be considerably more common towards the end of the race and in uphill sections. By asking runners where they found the race most exhausting, it is possible to identify places where the risk of SLTMEs will be greater and thereby where medical personnel should be stationed. From a practical perspective, using this method could considerably increase the safety of competitors as well as improving the cost-effectiveness of safety interventions at endurance races.