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Verifying Experimental Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Hindcasts Across the United States
Hot and humid heat exposures challenge the health of outdoor workers engaged in occupations such as construction, agriculture, first response, manufacturing, military, or resource extraction. Therefore, government institutes developed guidelines to prevent heat‐related illnesses and death during hig...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8975719/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35386529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2021GH000527 |
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author | Ahn, Yoonjung Uejio, Christopher K. Rennie, Jared Schmit, Lisa |
author_facet | Ahn, Yoonjung Uejio, Christopher K. Rennie, Jared Schmit, Lisa |
author_sort | Ahn, Yoonjung |
collection | PubMed |
description | Hot and humid heat exposures challenge the health of outdoor workers engaged in occupations such as construction, agriculture, first response, manufacturing, military, or resource extraction. Therefore, government institutes developed guidelines to prevent heat‐related illnesses and death during high heat exposures. The guidelines use Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), which integrates temperature, humidity, solar radiation, and wind speed. However, occupational heat exposure guidelines cannot be readily applied to outdoor work places due to limited WBGT validation studies. In recent years, institutions have started providing experimental WBGT forecasts. These experimental products are continually being refined and have been minimally validated with ground‐based observations. This study evaluated a modified WBGT hindcast using the historical National Digital Forecast Database and the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis v5. We verified the hindcasts with hourly WBGT estimated from ground‐based weather observations. After controlling for geographic attributes and temporal trends, the average difference between the hindcast and in situ data varied from −0.64°C to 1.46°C for different Köppen‐Geiger climate regions, and the average differences are reliable for decision making. However, the results showed statistically significant variances according to geographical features such as aspect, coastal proximity, land use, topographic position index, and Köppen‐Geiger climate categories. The largest absolute difference was observed in the arid desert climates (1.46: 95% CI: 1.45, 1.47), including some parts of Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. This research investigates geographic factors associated with systematic WBGT differences and points toward ways future forecasts may be statistically adjusted to improve accuracy. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8975719 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-89757192022-04-05 Verifying Experimental Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Hindcasts Across the United States Ahn, Yoonjung Uejio, Christopher K. Rennie, Jared Schmit, Lisa Geohealth Research Article Hot and humid heat exposures challenge the health of outdoor workers engaged in occupations such as construction, agriculture, first response, manufacturing, military, or resource extraction. Therefore, government institutes developed guidelines to prevent heat‐related illnesses and death during high heat exposures. The guidelines use Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), which integrates temperature, humidity, solar radiation, and wind speed. However, occupational heat exposure guidelines cannot be readily applied to outdoor work places due to limited WBGT validation studies. In recent years, institutions have started providing experimental WBGT forecasts. These experimental products are continually being refined and have been minimally validated with ground‐based observations. This study evaluated a modified WBGT hindcast using the historical National Digital Forecast Database and the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis v5. We verified the hindcasts with hourly WBGT estimated from ground‐based weather observations. After controlling for geographic attributes and temporal trends, the average difference between the hindcast and in situ data varied from −0.64°C to 1.46°C for different Köppen‐Geiger climate regions, and the average differences are reliable for decision making. However, the results showed statistically significant variances according to geographical features such as aspect, coastal proximity, land use, topographic position index, and Köppen‐Geiger climate categories. The largest absolute difference was observed in the arid desert climates (1.46: 95% CI: 1.45, 1.47), including some parts of Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. This research investigates geographic factors associated with systematic WBGT differences and points toward ways future forecasts may be statistically adjusted to improve accuracy. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8975719/ /pubmed/35386529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2021GH000527 Text en © 2022 The Authors. GeoHealth published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Geophysical Union. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Ahn, Yoonjung Uejio, Christopher K. Rennie, Jared Schmit, Lisa Verifying Experimental Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Hindcasts Across the United States |
title | Verifying Experimental Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Hindcasts Across the United States |
title_full | Verifying Experimental Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Hindcasts Across the United States |
title_fullStr | Verifying Experimental Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Hindcasts Across the United States |
title_full_unstemmed | Verifying Experimental Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Hindcasts Across the United States |
title_short | Verifying Experimental Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Hindcasts Across the United States |
title_sort | verifying experimental wet bulb globe temperature hindcasts across the united states |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8975719/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35386529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2021GH000527 |
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