About this Research Topic

Background

As home to more than 55% of the world’s population, urban areas face increasing risks from global climate change, especially the changes in the frequency, intensity, and duration of weather and climate extremes. Meanwhile, urban areas also influence local weather and climate through landscape changes, anthropogenic heat release, and pollutant emissions, which in turn alter the patterns of extreme events. Given the high costs of extremes and disasters, it is imperative to understand the physical processes of weather and climate extremes in urban areas and quantify their historical and future impacts on cities. In response to rising risks, various mitigation and adaptation strategies have been proposed and implemented in cities worldwide. However, the effectiveness of such interventions in urban environments for making urban environments more resilient to extremes involves careful examination of land-atmosphere interactions impacting heat, precipitation, and air quality under different climate and weather conditions.

This Research Topic seeks contributions that advance our understanding of current and future weather and climate extremes in cities, how they would influence different aspects of the urban environment, and the cost and effectiveness of various mitigation and adaptation strategies. These include heat waves, cold waves, extreme precipitation events, hurricanes and storms, urban flooding, coastal flooding, droughts, and air pollution episodes. Studies can be based on field (station-based and mobile) measurements, remote sensing techniques, and statistical and numerical models at different spatial and temporal scales. Contributions reviewing recent advances or evaluating the implementation of policies or interventions (for risk prevention and management) are also welcome.

This collection welcomes three types of contributions: research article/review, perspective/brief report/mini-review, and data report/opinion.

Although contributions on all related topics are welcome, those addressing at least one of the following three major themes are preferred:

(1) Understanding the physical processes of weather and climate extremes in the urban environment and their interactions with the local climate (e.g., urban heat island) and global warming.

(2) Quantifying the direct and cascading impacts of weather and climate extremes on air quality, water quality, human health, building energy consumption, and other urban infrastructures, such as water and power supply, drainage systems, and transportation.

(3) Evaluating the effectiveness of various mitigation and adaptation strategies in response to current and future weather and climate extremes in cities, including but not limited to green infrastructure, blue infrastructure, white roofs, reflective and permeable pavements, urban irrigation, and morphological design.

Keywords: urban climate, urban meteorology, weather and climate extremes, urban air quality, mitigation and adaptation, green infrastructure, sustainable urban development, global warming, urban heat island

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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