Comparing the cooling effectiveness of operationalisable urban surface combination scenarios for summer heat mitigation.

Extreme summer heat in cities exacerbates the vulnerability of urban communities to heatwaves. Vegetative and reflective urban surfaces can help reduce urban heat. This study investigated the impacts of urban trees, green roofs and cool roofs on heat mitigation during average and extreme summer conditions in temperate oceanic Melbourne, Australia. We simulated the city climate using 'The Air Pollution Model' (TAPM) at a 1 km spatial resolution over 10 years, which according to our review of the literature, was the most prolonged period for simulation in Melbourne. During a widespread heatwave event, some of the tested scenarios with combined surface parameters could reduce the extreme values of the energy budget components- sensible heat, latent heat, and storage heat fluxes up to seasonal averages compared to the existing situation for Melbourne (control). The scenario with the highest (reasonable maximum) ground-level vegetation, green roofs, and cool roofs could reduce air temperatures up to 2.4 °C. The simulations suggest that a combined strategy with vegetative and high-albedo surfaces will deliver higher effectiveness with maximum cooling benefits and cost-effectiveness than individual strategies in cities. These results suggest the importance of collaborative strategic planning of urban surfaces to make cities healthier, sustainable, and liveable.

Atmospheric modelling of grass pollen rupturing mechanisms for thunderstorm asthma prediction.

The world's most severe thunderstorm asthma event occurred in Melbourne, Australia on 21 November 2016, coinciding with the peak of the grass pollen season. The aetiological role of thunderstorms in these events is thought to cause pollen to rupture in high humidity conditions, releasing large numbers of sub-pollen particles (SPPs) with sizes very easily inhaled deep into the lungs. The humidity hypothesis was implemented into a three-dimensional atmospheric model and driven by inputs from three meteorological models. However, the mechanism could not explain how the Melbourne event occurred as relative humidity was very low throughout the atmosphere, and most available grass pollen remained within 40 m of the surface. Our tests showed humidity induced rupturing occurred frequently at other times and would likely lead to recurrent false alarms if used in a predictive capacity. We used the model to investigate a range of other possible pollen rupturing mechanisms which could have produced high concentrations of SPPs in the atmosphere during the storm. The mechanisms studied involve mechanical friction from wind gusts, electrical build up and discharge incurred during conditions of low relative humidity, and lightning strikes. Our results suggest that these mechanisms likely operated in tandem with one another, but the lightning method was the only mechanism to generate a pattern in SPPs following the path of the storm. If humidity induced rupturing cannot explain the 2016 Melbourne event, then new targeted laboratory studies of alternative pollen rupture mechanisms would be of considerable value to help constrain the parameterisation of the pollen rupturing process.

Future changes in extreme weather and pyroconvection risk factors for Australian wildfires.

Extreme wildfires have recently caused disastrous impacts in Australia and other regions of the world, including events with strong convective processes in their plumes (i.e., strong pyroconvection). Dangerous wildfire events such as these could potentially be influenced by anthropogenic climate change, however, there are large knowledge gaps on how these events might change in the future. The McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) is used to represent near-surface weather conditions and the Continuous Haines index (CH) is used here to represent lower to mid-tropospheric vertical atmospheric stability and humidity measures relevant to dangerous wildfires and pyroconvective processes. Projected changes in extreme measures of CH and FFDI are examined using a multi-method approach, including an ensemble of global climate models together with two ensembles of regional climate models. The projections show a clear trend towards more dangerous near-surface fire weather conditions for Australia based on the FFDI, as well as increased pyroconvection risk factors for some regions of southern Australia based on the CH. These results have implications for fields such as disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, ecology, policy and planning, noting that improved knowledge on how climate change can influence extreme wildfires can help reduce future impacts of these events.

ASSESSING CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON THE STABILITY OF SMALL TIDAL INLETS: Part 2- DATA RICH ENVIRONMENTS.

Climate change (CC) is likely to affect the thousands of bar-built or barrier estuaries (here referred to as Small tidal inlets - STIs) around the world. Any such CC impacts on the stability of STIs, which governs the dynamics of STIs as well as that of the inlet-adjacent coastline, can result in significant socio-economic consequences due to the heavy human utilisation of these systems and their surrounds. This article demonstrates the application of a process based snap-shot modelling approach, using the coastal morphodynamic model Delft3D, to 3 case study sites representing the 3 main STI types; Permanently open, locationally stable inlets (Type 1), Permanently open, alongshore migrating inlets (Type 2) and Seasonally/Intermittently open, locationally stable inlets (Type 3). The 3 case study sites (Negombo lagoon - Type 1, Kalutara lagoon - Type 2, and Maha Oya river - Type 3) are all located along the southwest coast of Sri Lanka. After successful hydrodynamic and morphodynamic model validation at the 3 case study sites, CC impact assessment are undertaken for a high end greenhouse gas emission scenario. Future CC modified wave and riverflow conditions are derived from a regional scale application of spectral wave models (WaveWatch III and SWAN) and catchment scale applications of a hydrologic model (CLSM) respectively, both of which are forced with IPCC Global Climate Model output dynamically downscaled to ~ 50 km resolution over the study area with the stretched grid Conformal Cubic Atmospheric Model CCAM. Results show that while all 3 case study STIs will experience significant CC driven variations in their level of stability, none of them will change Type by the year 2100. Specifically, the level of stability of the Type 1 inlet will decrease from 'Good' to 'Fair to poor' by 2100, while the level of (locational) stability of the Type 2 inlet will also decrease with a doubling of the annual migration distance. Conversely, the stability of the Type 3 inlet will increase, with the time till inlet closure increasing by ~75%. The main contributor to the overall CC effect on the stability of all 3 STIs is CC driven variations in wave conditions and resulting changes in longshore sediment transport, not Sea level rise as commonly believed.

Urban vegetation for reducing heat related mortality.

The potential benefit of urban vegetation in reducing heat related mortality in the city of Melbourne, Australia is investigated using a two-scale modelling approach. A meso-scale urban climate model was used to quantify the effects of ten urban vegetation schemes on the current climate in 2009 and future climates in 2030 and 2050. The indoor thermal performance of five residential buildings was then simulated using a building simulation tool with the local meso-climates associated with various urban vegetation schemes. Simulation results suggest that average seasonal summer temperatures can be reduced in the range of around 0.5 and 2 °C if the city were replaced by vegetated suburbs and parklands, respectively. With the limited buildings and local meso-climates investigated in this study, around 5-28% and 37-99% reduction in heat related mortality rate have been estimated by doubling the city's vegetation coverage and transforming the city into parklands respectively.

Rainfall reductions over Southern Hemisphere semi-arid regions: the role of subtropical dry zone expansion.

Since the late 1970s, Southern Hemisphere semi-arid regions such as southern-coastal Chile, southern Africa, and southeastern Australia have experienced a drying trend in austral autumn, predominantly during April and May. The rainfall reduction coincides with a poleward expansion of the tropical belt and subtropical dry zone by around 2°-3° in the same season. This has raised questions as to whether the regional rainfall reductions are attributable to this poleward expansion. Here we show that the impact of the poleward subtropical dry-zone shift is not longitudinally uniform: a clear shift occurs south of Africa and across southern Australia, but there is no evidence of a poleward shift in the southern Chilean sector. As such, a poleward shift of climatological April-May rainfall can explain most of the southeastern Australia rainfall decline, a small portion of the southern Africa rainfall trend, but not the autumn drying over southern Chile.