Hotspots for heat stress in a changing climate: persian gulf, south asia, and eastern china - Elfatih A. B. Eltahir

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• The global temperature of Planet Earth is rising due to anthropogenic changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
• During the last century the global surface temperature warmed by about one degree centigrade.
• This trend is projected to continue into the future, with a rate that will reflect the level of mitigation efforts pursued by the global society during the coming decades.
• The rising temperature will increase the level of heat stress experienced by people around the world.
• The space-time distribution of future heat stress will depend on the current distribution of surface temperature, as well as the rate by which the temperature is projected to change.
• This current distribution of temperature reflects to a large degree the geography of low-lying areas (valleys), proximity to water bodies, prevailing wind directions, and land use (e.g. irrigation). While most discussion of heat stress tends to focus on dry-bulb temperature, which is the regular temperature as measured by thermometers and sensed by satellite radiometers.
• However, humans react to variation in their skin temperature.
• The latter reflects not only the regular temperature, but also the level of humidity.
• The wet-bulb temperature, measured by wet-bulb thermometers, is the best approximation of the human skin temperature under well-ventilated condition.
• Hence, in this book we choose to focus on the wet-bulb temperature as a measure of heat stress.