Showing posts with label Heatwave 2022. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heatwave 2022. Show all posts

Monday, 25 July 2022

Fun in the Sun?

I have been collecting imagery of the days when temperature records were broken and have started to put together a Pinterest board of imagery. This will be used in the Michaelmas term when we explore the geography that happened this summer.


One of the most interesting aspects of the media coverage has been the slight shift in narrative. 

This followed the fires in a number of locations during the worst of the heat at the start of last week. 

There has been plenty of information on this in the media.

Download a copy of the Saffron O' Neill paper that I have mentioned a number of times in previous blog posts here. It is an accessible read and will be referred to in my teaching in the new academic year.

Tuesday, 19 July 2022

Bill McGuire on our near futures

An important and powerful piece was published in yesterday's 'The Guardian' newspaper.

It was written by Bill McGuire, who is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL and a climate activist.

It was written ahead of today's record temperature being reached, with over 40 degrees C at Heathrow Airport by midday.

There are many impacts outlined here which we have been teaching about in geography for many years.

Progressive climate breakdown will affect everyone and insinuate itself into every aspect of our lives. Transport and energy infrastructure will succumb repeatedly to the onslaught of extreme weather, making otherwise straightforward journeys increasingly problematical, and power outages a normal part of daily life.

I am all too aware of this particular impact, as travel issues meant that I was unable to get to Paris for IGU this week, with Eurostar sold out or too expensive. The train I was due to catch took 6 hours eventually to make a two hour journey...

The hottest places to live #1

This BBC article looks at people living in the hottest parts of the country.

This is defined by a data set which is called the Heat Hazard Score.

They are made for the OS by a company called 4 Earth Intelligence.

The potential heat hazard score for small geographical areas - known as a Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) - was calculated by 4 Earth Intelligence, who measured the average land surface temperature over a sample of days in the past three summers across Great Britain.

Deprivation data was taken from the latest English, Scottish and Welsh Indices of multiple deprivation (IMD). Each IMD is the nation's official measure of relative deprivation, or poverty, and is weighted heavily towards income, employment, education, and health.

The scores range from one to five, and provide an indicator of how likely it is that an area will experience high temperatures during hot weather, when compared with other areas in the surrounding neighbourhood.

As the BBC article explains, there are certain things factored into the calculation, such as the presence of water and vegetation.

A statistical method was used to standardise land surface temperatures, which involved combining satellite images for different dates over the past three years. The temperature data was then adjusted to consider the different average temperatures of each region, to highlight hotter areas across the country, while accounting for varying climates. Five is the highest score.

Normalising the temperatures of each region before calculating the score means the data highlights hotter areas in different parts of the country, despite having different climates.

This ONS report, one of several which were produced during COVID, explained that one in eight houses has no garden. This means no opportunity for shaded outside space...


It would be great to have a subset of data available for educational purposes, perhaps for a city such as Leeds which has a river and parks, and is also an OCR A/B Case Study city.

They're hotter...

BBC News.



Monday, 18 July 2022

Heatwave 2022

We will start the year with a look at this event, so keep an eye out for impacts if you were still in the UK at the time...