This paper reviews urban heat (UrHT) challenges following the SBAR (situation, background, assessment and recommendation) framework. The results indicate that heatwaves become more frequent, lasting and intense, especially after 1990s. Above 1960s level, heatwaves across China doubled in both magnitude and frequency by 2018. Jianghuai and Southern China underwent the largest magnitude and most widespread increases. Under 1.5 °C warming limit, the average heatwave days and duration across China will increase by 10.8 days and 3.9 days. Drought–heatwave co–occurrence is increasingly frequent at 7–11%/decade (from 1961 to 2018) and the co–occurrence leads to more intense heatwaves. UHIs are a common issue for almost all Chinese cities and UHIs have been aggravating annually. Daytime UHIs peak in summer, indicating the synergies with heatwaves. The synergies are prominent in southeastern cities for strong summer daytime UHIs in eastern cities and intense heatwaves in southern regions. UrHTs have not been recognised and there are no dedicated/mandatory plans. Mega–challenges of climate change, rapid urbanisation, carbon– and labour–intensive economic growth and demographic changes can potentially lock China into UrHT challenges. Addressing UrHT challenges is urgent in China not only for environmental, ecosystem, social and health consequences, but also for economic impacts relevant to labour, capital, and goods or services. Efforts are suggested in technical improvement, policy formulation, social participation, economic investment and co-benefit approach recognition. Overall, this paper provides a comprehensive understanding of heat–related challenges in China and can guide the creation of cool cities and communities in practice. 

Beating the urban heat: Situation, background, impacts and the way forward in China

Extreme temperatures were considered natural hazards because they could increase morbidity and mortality. Understanding the extreme temperature changes at different warming levels is crucial to climate change mitigation and adoption for human health. This study projected climate change effects on the intensity, occurrence, and duration of extreme temperatures in Taiwan with 2 and 4°C global warming scenarios using the Weather Research and Forecasting model. The future climate simulations were conducted with the pseudo‐global warming approach, and the future climate changes were obtained from the ensemble mean of simulations in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5. The simulated daily mean temperature increased by 1.40 and 3.09°C under 2 and 4°C global warmings. In a warming world, the daily maximum temperature was projected to increase by 1.35–3.00°C, whereas the daily minimum temperature was even higher, leading to weaker diurnal temperature variation in most regions. The simulation results show that intensified heatwaves with frequent and prolonged durations become par for the course, whereas extremely cold days disappear gradually. The occurrence of heatwaves in the future is projected to be five times that in the current climate. Comparing the global warming impacts over different land‐use types, the heatwave occurrence over urban areas rose more quickly than over other land‐use types; forests are less vulnerable to global warming. On the contrary, the changes in extremely cold days over urban areas were weaker than over other land‐use types. Overall, the effects of global warming on temperature revealed that extreme events were more severe with increased temperature than with the mean state of air temperature. Nonlinear behaviours indicated that global warming should be limited to 2°C, and the additional 2°C warming (from 2 to 4°C) should be addressed carefully.

Impacts of 2 and 4°C global warmings on extreme temperatures in Taiwan

Street-facing Dwelling with Eaves Gallery (SDEG) was built for both commercial activities and residential needs. The Eaves Gallery (EG) and courtyards with small sky view factor (SVF) in those dwellings were shaped to prevent the residences or pedestrians from strong sun radiation, heavy rain, or snow. As a climate-adaptive vernacular architecture, it has lasted for hundreds of years in the large areas along the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) of China. Yet, few studies systematically investigate the thermal conditions of these dwellings and validate their climate resilience quantitatively under heat waves. Concerning the extreme weather caused by climate change, this study investigated indoor, semi-outdoor, and outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) of the SDEG in Xiaohe Town of Hubei province, China during the heatwave event in 2022. While mobile and fixed measurements were carried out to capture the data of thermal environments, the skin temperature measurements were implemented to understand the thermal responses of the households. The results found that SDEG was qualified to help indoor households avoid the heat risk with proper thermal behaviors but cannot provide a safe thermal environment for the pedestrians in the semi-outdoor or outdoor space of the EG street throughout the day. This study demonstrated the negative effects of heatwaves on not only the walking visitors but also the livelihood of the residents, which is an appeal to scholars to attention to the heat risks and thermal behaviors of marginalized groups living in various vernacular buildings within the context of high-temperature scenarios under the heatwave conditions. 

Assessing the thermal risks for residents and visitors in traditional Street-facing Dwellings with Eaves Gallery during an extreme heatwave event

Climate change is an urgent global issue and anthropogenic influence on the climate system is clear. Climate models project a world with significant increases in the frequency and intensity of climate extremes and natural disasters. Although climate change impacts are not always negative, adverse impacts of climate change will alter the normal conditions of the physical environments, ecosystems, and social environments, and thus threaten the societal sustainable developments and human well-beings. The risks of climate change on human health, ecosystems, economics, agriculture, fishery and forestry have been alerted. However, we still lack a thorough understanding of climate change induced disasters as well as impacts and risks of these disasters. To better understand the climate change impacts, a special issue focusing on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Assessments incorporates the progresses on global change, regional climate modeling and future projections in the light of Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). It focuses on extreme events and natural disasters, and their social and economic impacts as well as advances in predictability over time and space. This special issue covers three aspects of climate change impacts, i.e., natural environments, ecosystems, and social environments.

Climate change adaptation and disaster risk assessments: A preface

Although the association between ambient temperature and mortality of respiratory diseases was numerously documented, the association between various ambient temperature levels and respiratory emergency department (ED) visits has not been well studied. A recent investigation of the association between respiratory ED visits and various levels of ambient temperature was conducted in Beijing, China. 

Lag effect of ambient temperature on respiratory emergency department visits in Beijing: a time series and pooled analysis

More than four hundred million people suffer from respiratory diseases each year. Respiratory diseases are associated with a large disease burden. Heatwaves and cold spells, the two most common extreme weather events, have been shown to have crucial negative effects on the prevalence of respiratory diseases. However, impacts of extreme weather on the prevalence of respiratory diseases has been largely overlooked in western China, where more intense and frequent extreme temperature events have been occurring over the past decades. This research gap will obtain an attribution bias in the effects of extreme weather events on the prevalence of respiratory diseases. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the impact of heatwaves and cold spells on the morbidity of respiratory diseases using a distributed lag nonlinear model with daily disease cases from 2013 to 2016 in Lanzhou, one of the largest cities in western China. A reverse U-shaped relationship depicted the relationship between temperature and the morbidity of respiratory diseases. The highest relative risk was found at 2.6 °C by 1.15 (95% confidence interval: 1.09–1.21). Furthermore, we found a significant decrease in the relative risk for heatwaves and a significant increase in the relative risk of cold spells when the temperature exceeded the corresponding threshold by 1 °C. Heatwaves and cold spells play harvest effects on the morbidity of respiratory diseases. Our study suggest that the relative risk of respiratory diseases will increase as the climate warms in the future, and thus a preventive system is needed for individuals and medical policy-makers.

Impact of heatwaves and cold spells on the morbidity of respiratory diseases: A case study in Lanzhou, China

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Impact of heatwaves and cold spells on the morbidity of respiratory diseases: A case study in Lanzhou, China