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Climate change and summer thermal comfort in China

Lookup NU author(s): Qinqin Kong, Professor Hayley Fowler

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This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Springer-Verlag Wien, 2019.

For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.


Abstract

© 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature. Heat escape-motivated travel, called “sunbird” tourism, has become increasingly important with global warming and associated urban heat island effects. This study proposes a new method based on defining “comfortable” calendar days, to identify regions thermally suitable for “sunbird” tourism (namely northern Northeast China, eastern Inner Mongolia Plateau, northern Xinjiang Province, eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and Yungui Plateau) and their comfortable periods in China. From 1961–1990 to 1987–2016, comfortable periods have extended by 5 to over 20 days in eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and parts of Yungui Plateau, but shortened by 5 to over 20 days in northern Northeast China and eastern Inner Mongolia Plateau, corresponding to 9 and 21 locations respectively becoming suitable and no longer suitable for “sunbird” tourism. Moreover, comfortable periods are now much earlier in the eastern Inner Mongolia Plateau and have dramatically altered in terms of their temporal distribution over the eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Finally, we discuss the implications for tourism.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Kong Q, Zheng J, Fowler HJ, Ge Q, Xi J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Theoretical and Applied Climatology

Year: 2019

Volume: 137

Issue: 1-2

Pages: 1077-1088

Print publication date: 01/07/2019

Online publication date: 06/10/2018

Acceptance date: 28/09/2018

Date deposited: 18/12/2018

ISSN (print): 0177-798X

ISSN (electronic): 1434-4483

Publisher: Springer-Verlag Wien

URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-018-2648-5

DOI: 10.1007/s00704-018-2648-5


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Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
41671036
201604910868
ERC-2013-CoG-617329

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