Challenge 15 - Calendar of heatwaves: user interface allowing planning based on heat projections

[RubenRT7]

Challenge 15 - Calendar of heatwaves: user interface allowing planning based on heat projections

Stream 1 - Data Visualization and visual narratives for Earth Sciences applications

Goal

The goal of the challenge is to develop a user interface that would allow the non-technical user (e.g., someone working in the health sector, in education, a policy maker, a politician, a member of the general public), for a location of choice, to learn about the number of heatwave days/tropical nights expected in a given time period in a calendar year, currently and for different future time horizons under different climate change scenarios. The interface should also convey how early or late in the year heatwave days/tropical nights are likely to occur.

Mentors and skills

• Mentors:
  • EEA: Aleksandra Kazmierczak, Eline Vanuytrecht
  • ECMWF: Julie Letertre, Samuel Almond, Edward Comyn-Platt
• Skills required:
  • Knowledge of handling geospatial data and time series
  • Processing and visualization of scientific data - C3S used netcdf files, so experience handling this data is required
  • Experience with Javascript and React which are both required for the development of the applications in the new applications framework

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Challenge description

• What is the current problem / limitation? Knowledge on the current and projected occurrence of days with temperatures dangerous to human health for a given location can be helpful for short-, medium- and long-term planning for a variety of users. For example, knowing how early high temperatures can occur in the year, and how many days with temperatures dangerous to human health are to be expected in certain periods, can be used in public health to extend the period of heatwave action plans; in education (to adjust the academic year); tourism (e.g. planning active holidays that may be dangerous to health in high temperatures). Currently the Copernicus data on heatwave days is only readily available to lay users as an annual aggregate through the European Climate Data Explorer (e.g. https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/metadata/indicators/apparent-temperature-heatwave-days). It would be useful for the non-technical users to be able to:

• identify the number of predefined heatwave days / tropical nights for their location of choice for chosen periods (e.g. 1 May – 30 June) for the baseline period, as well as for future time horizons of choice (e.g. 30-year periods in the future) under different climate scenarios (e.g. SSP/RCP scenarios or equivalent degrees of warming).
• Learn when the conditions dangerous to human health are likely to occur first/last in the calendar year, in the baseline period as well as for the future periods under different climate scenarios. • What data / system do you plan to use? The ECDE will serve as the main platform to broker climate hazard information from C3S to EEA. Therefore the challenger must consider technologies that are compatible with the new C3S applications. The European Climate Data Explorer climate impact indicators; apparent temperature heatwave days and tropical nights should be used. The heat stress indicators to be used within this challenge will be publicly available by the time the challenge commences and will be accessible via the Climate Data Store. The C3S web-applications will use JS-react for the front-end and any backend processing done with Python. The applications will be deployed as DockerImages within a Kubernetes framework. The applications should follow the guidelines set by ECMWF which includes instructions on the components libraries to use. Any new components developed should be written generically such that they could be added to an ECMWF components library. The applications should be appropriately documented with a view that this documentation may also be published on user facing web-sites. • What could be the solution? A user interface, where the user can:
• Enter their geographical location (e.g. postcode, city, geographical coordinates, pinned location on a map)
• Enter a period in the year they are interested in (e.g. 1 May – 30 September),
• Choose climate change scenario (e.g. SSP/RCP or equivalent degrees Celsius warming)
• Choose the future time period for projections (e.g. (predefined) 30-year time periods)
• Obtain, based on the choices above, the number of heatwave days/tropical nights for the baseline period, as well as for the future projections.
• Obtain the calendar days on which the first and last heatwave day and tropical night are likely to occur - currently and in the future under climate change The user interface will be an operational, stand-alone application, easily embedded as an i-frame into webpages of the European Climate and Health Observatory (https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/observatory). It would also be ideally compatible with the ‘Check your place’ functionality in the European Environment and Health Atlas (https://discomap.eea.europa.eu/atlas/?page=Check-your-place), so that the outcomes of the challenge could feed into the European Environment and Health Atlas. • Provide some ideas for implementation (optional) European Climate and Health Observatory European Environment and Health Atlas

[danghieutrung]

Hi! We are a team currently working in a climate project and we are interested in this challenge. We have a few questions:

Currently the Copernicus data on heatwave days is only readily available to lay users as an annual aggregate through the European Climate Data Explorer (e.g. https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/metadata/indicators/apparent-temperature-heatwave-days).

1. We find that there are two websites for heatwave days (Apparent and Climatological). The project involves working with both or only the Apparent heatwave days estimator?

Enter their geographical location (e.g. postcode, city, geographical coordinates, pinned location on a map)

2. In the csv data files that are used in those 2 websites, there are 2 columns, one for location code name and one for number of days. Is there some kind of tool, e.g. a dataset, that provides every location code name and their corresponding location, coordinates, etc.? And if yes, is it publicly available and where can we find it?

It would also be ideally compatible with the ‘Check your place’ functionality in the European Environment and Health Atlas (https://discomap.eea.europa.eu/atlas/?page=Check-your-place), so that the outcomes of the challenge could feed into the European Environment and Health Atlas.

3. Will the front-end JS app be readily integrated into the ‘Check your place’ functionality, or there will be some extra work involving the integration?

Thank you!

[trakasa]

Dear @danghieutrung many thanks for your interest in Code for Earth and this challenge. Many of the mentors/colleagues are on Easter break, but I will try to find an answer and will get back to you with updated information as soon as I hear from them.

Many thanks for your understanding.

Bye, Athina

[vanuyela]

Dear @danghieutrung,

thanks for your interest in this challenge. We would be delighted to work with you on this project! Please find my answers to your questions below. I hope these are helpful and reach you in time. If you have further questions, please let me know. If you embark on mission to solve this challenge, we can have an online meeting to further discuss these and potential future questions.

Best regards, Eline

1. Currently the Copernicus data on heatwave days is only readily available to lay users as an annual aggregate through the European Climate Data Explorer (e.g. https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/metadata/indicators/apparent-temperature-heatwave-days).

We find that there are two websites for heatwave days (Apparenthttps://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/metadata/indicators/apparent-temperature-heatwave-days and Climatologicalhttps://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/metadata/indicators/climatological-heatwave-days#:~:text=A%20climatological%20heatwave%20is%20a,season%20during%20a%20reference%20period.). The project involves working with both or only the Apparent heatwave days estimator?

For lay users, the apparent heatwave days are most relevant, so our priority lies with using this dataset. [Yet, in case it would be a little effort to add information based on climatological heatwave days, this can be added to the developed application.]

2. Enter their geographical location (e.g. postcode, city, geographical coordinates, pinned location on a map)

In the csv data files that are used in those 2 websites, there are 2 columns, one for location code name and one for number of days. Is there some kind of tool, e.g. a dataset, that provides every location code name and their corresponding location, coordinates, etc.? And if yes, is it publicly available and where can we find it?

The location code names in the downloadable csv files correspond to NUTS2 regions in Europe, to which the data are aggregated. The location names are no point locations. The NUTS (Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics) classification system defines administrative boundaries, with NUT2 referring to areas relevant for regional policy making. See NUTS - GISCO - Eurostat (europa.eu)https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/reference-data/administrative-units-statistical-units/nuts and Overview - Eurostat (europa.eu)https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nuts/overview/ for information on the NUTS-2021 classification system. Before aggregation to the NUTS regions (or regions and zones in other aggregation methods), the raw data have a spatial resolution of 0.1° x 0.1° (see also the documentation to the apparent temperature heatwave days dataset from Copernicus: #8 Apparent Temperature Heatwave Days PUG (copernicus-climate.eu)https://datastore.copernicus-climate.eu/documents/ecde/8-ecde-app-apparent-temperature-heatwave-days-v1.0.pdf.

3. It would also be ideally compatible with the ‘Check your place’ functionality in the European Environment and Health Atlas (https://discomap.eea.europa.eu/atlas/?page=Check-your-place), so that the outcomes of the challenge could feed into the European Environment and Health Atlas.

Will the front-end JS app be readily integrated into the ‘Check your place’ functionality, or there will be some extra work involving the integration?

This additional step of integration in the European Environment and Health Atlas will be done at a later stage (not as part of this challenge). Yet, it would be good to align the characteristics of the application developed in the challenge and the EU Health Atlas ‘Check your place’ functionality, so that future integration can be smooth.

[danghieutrung]

Hi @vanuyela and @trakasa ,

Thank you for the detailed response.

Unfortunately, I have checked the terms and agreements of Code for Earth and I am not eligible to participate in the program.

Many thanks and all the best with the project!