{"id":2941,"date":"2025-03-25T12:50:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T10:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbag.eu\/?p=2941"},"modified":"2025-03-25T12:50:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T10:50:06","slug":"presentacio-de-tesi-doctoral-urban-climate-now-and-in-the-future-what-is-the-impact-of-heat-waves-and-strategies-for-adaptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/2025\/03\/25\/presentacio-de-tesi-doctoral-urban-climate-now-and-in-the-future-what-is-the-impact-of-heat-waves-and-strategies-for-adaptation\/","title":{"rendered":"Presentaci\u00f3 de tesi Doctoral: Urban climate now and in the future: what is the impact of heat waves and strategies for adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00c9s un gran plaer convidar-vos a la presentaci\u00f3 de Tesi Doctoral d\u2019en Sergi Ventura Caball\u00e9 <\/a><\/b>el proper 28 de Mar\u00e7 a les 11:00 a l\u2019ICTA-UAB<\/b> sala Z\/022- Z\/023. Tamb\u00e9 \u00e9s possible connectar-se online seguint aquest enlla\u00e7<\/strong>.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

T\u00edtol de la tesi: Urban climate now and in the future: what is the impact of heat waves and strategies for adaptation<\/p>\n

Supervisors: Dr. Gara Villalba<\/a> (UAB), Dr. Josep Ramon Mir\u00f3<\/a> (SMC)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Summary:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching implications for public health, projected to intensify its impacts in the coming decades. The increase in global and local temperatures also exacerbates extreme events such as heat waves (HWs), intensifying not only their severity but also their frequency and duration. Urban areas are particularly sensitive to HW, as they host over half of the global population and amplify temperatures due to radiation absorption by construction materials and anthropogenic heat generation. Therefore, understanding the effects of HW and planning adaptation strategies in urban areas is vital for public well-being. This thesis focuses on the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB), a densely populated region with over 3.3 million inhabitants, and particularly vulnerable to climate change.<\/p>\n

HWs are periods of abnormally high temperatures that, aside from lacking a universal definition, often have poorly understood synoptic behavior. This thesis aims to address this gap by first analyzing the synoptic conditions that drive small-scale changes. To achieve this, a catalog of synoptic patterns is developed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as an initial step to characterize the structure of HWs, identifying the patterns that explain the greatest statistical variability within each climatic period. This study allows the identification of HW pattern climatic evolution, thereby assessing possible climatic trends over the past decades concerning HWs. A preliminary analysis of future trends will also be conducted using three regional climate models.<\/p>\n

Future synoptic pattern trends associated with HWs show that atmospheric dynamics are expected to remain relatively stable, and main changes are primarily thermal. This supports the approach of projecting future synoptic patterns based on the recent climatic period, as significant structural changes in these patterns are unlikely in the future. For this, the Pseudo Global Warming (PGW) methodology has been selected, as it allows the projection of a specific period while maintaining general synoptic conditions and perturbing multiple meteorological variables under climate change scenarios. These future projections enable the assessment of how anticipated thermodynamic changes at the synoptic scale might impact locally at the urban scale. Therefore, this thesis proposes simulations with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model combined with urban parameterizations Building Effect Parameterization (BEP) and Building Energy Model (BEM) to perform a dynamic downscaling to 1 km using PGW. This configuration enables detailed simulations of local phenomena occurring in urban areas.<\/p>\n

Understanding HWs in the AMB requires considering the behavior of breezes. These Mediterranean breezes soften maximum temperatures, increase ambient humidity, and moderate minimum temperatures, preventing them from dropping as much as in inland areas. The PGW study enables an analysis of the sensitivity of breezes to global warming during HW events, altering their trajectory and the hours of higher and lower influence.<\/p>\n

One of the objectives of this thesis is to warn of the risks of inaction in reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Beyond this, it aims to propose effective and realistic heat adaptation strategies for urban areas that can be implemented by public institutions. In this regard, the application of cool roofs and green roofs is proposed, as well as an analysis of land-use changes proposed by the metropolitan Urban Master Plan (PDU) and the effectiveness of irrigation in urban parks and agricultural areas. Cool roofs are highly effective in reducing temperatures but must consider the social benefits, GHG absorption, and mental health benefits associated with increasing green areas. Therefore, the application of combined strategies is highly recommended.<\/p>\n

This thesis aims to understand HW behavior beyond temperature. Starting from synoptic behavior and culminating at the urban scale with the planning of local strategies introduces essential variables to address future HW. The goal of this thesis is to establish a new paradigm in the study of HWs by integrating synoptic-scale analysis with a detailed urban-scale approach. This framework accounts for the uncertainties and mechanisms specific to each scale, providing a valuable tool for administrations tasked with designing and implementing strategies to enhance urban resilience to climate change.<\/p>\n

The structure of this thesis is designed to achieve the outlined research objectives presented in the following diagram:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00c9s un gran plaer convidar-vos a la presentaci\u00f3 de Tesi Doctoral d\u2019en Sergi Ventura el proper 28 de Mar\u00e7 a les 11:00 a l\u2019ICTA-UAB sala Z\/022- Z\/023. Tamb\u00e9 \u00e9s possible connectar-se online mitjan\u00e7ant l’enlla\u00e7 que proporcionem. Supervisors: Dr. Gara Villalba (UAB), Dr. Josep Ramon Mir\u00f3 (SMC)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3153,"featured_media":2944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[384,17,18,309,99,267,385,77,217,310,386,387,311,168],"class_list":["post-2941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-adaptation-strategies","tag-canvi-climatic","tag-climate-change","tag-defensa-de-tesi","tag-global-warming","tag-heat-waves","tag-hws","tag-icta","tag-infraestructures-verdes","tag-phd-defense","tag-synoptic-structures","tag-synoptic-weather-patterns","tag-tesi","tag-uab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/atmosphere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}