Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-92).

Many scientists have accepted that human activities are the major cause of climate change and global warming. Knowledge on the effect this will have on office buildings and energy consumption in the future is essential. Thus the assessment of future building energy consumption is becoming more important especially in countries such as Malaysia where the majority of the office buildings depend on air-conditioning to maintain the occupants level of comfort. This research explores the effect of future climate change weather on the energy consumption of office buildings in Malaysia, by using simulation software. Simulated weather data sets HadCM3 were supplied by the Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom for the recent past and for the future up to 2099. Test Reference Years (TRYs) were selected from this data using the Finkelstein-Schafer Statistic (FS) method for four time slices, namely TRYs 1990-2007, 2010-2039, 2040-2069 and 2070-2099. The HadCM3 data was validated by comparing the 1990-2007 TRY with a TRY selected by the same method and period from the measured weather. The Hadley data was supplied as daily values, but the building simulation software required hourly values. Algorithms were therefore used to generate hourly values from the daily data for the relevant variables (dry bulb temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and global solar radiation) and to decompose global solar radiation into direct and diffuse radiation. Two different office building were modelled in the simulation software, one imaginary simplified typical building and one real building. The sensible and latent annual cooling loads were found for each building for each different TRY. A sensitivity analysis was also performed to investigate the effect on cooling load of changes in building design as possible ways of mitigating the effects of climate change. It was found that climate change will increases the building energy consumption by 13.6 percent in future and better understanding on building design will reduce this effect.

Severe thunderstorm warnings (SVTs) are released by meteorologists in the local forecast offices of the National Weather Service (NWS). These warnings are issued with the intent of alerting areas in the path of severe thunderstorms that human and property risk are elevated, and that appropriate precautionary measures should be taken. However, studies have shown that the spatial distribution of severe storm warnings demonstrates bias. Greater numbers of severe thunderstorm warnings sometimes are issued where population is denser. By contrast, less populated areas may be underwarned. To investigate the spatial patterns of these biases for the central and southeastern United States, geographically weighted regression was implemented on a set of demographic and land cover descriptors to ascertain their patterns of spatial association with counts of National Weather Service severe thunderstorm warnings. GWR was performed for each our independent variables (total population, median income, and percent impervious land cover) and for all three of these variables as a group. Global R2 values indicate that each individual variable as well as all three collectively explain approximately 60% of the geographical variation in severe thunderstorm warning counts. Local R2 increased in the vicinity of several urban regions, notably Atlanta, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, and Nashville. However, the independent variables did not exhibit the same spatial patterning of R2. Some cities had high local R2 for all variables. Other cities exhibited high local R2 for only one or two of these independent variables. Median income had the highest local R2 values overall. Standardized residuals confirmed significant differences among several NWS forecast offices in the number and pattern of severe thunderstorm warnings. Overall, approximately half of the influences on the distribution of severe thunderstorm warnings across the study area are related to underlying land cover and demographics. Future studies may find it productive to investigate the extent to which the spatial bias mapped in this study is an artifact of forecast culture, background thunderstorm regime, or a product of urban anthropogenic weather modification.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第23164号 / 工博第4808号 / 新制||工||1752(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院工学研究科社会基盤工学専攻 / (主査)教授 立川 康人, 准教授 KIM SUNMIN, 教授 中北 英一 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

Changes in climate result in wide-ranging economic impacts, especially for businesses that rely on consistent weather patterns. The North Carolina ski resorts (Beech Mountain Ski Resort, Appalachian Ski Resort, Sugar Mountain Ski Resort, Wolf Ridge Ski Resort, Cataloochee Ski Area, and Sapphire Valley Ski Area) are the southernmost resorts on the east coast in the US. They are able to stay in business because of the diverse terrain and elevation of the Appalachian Mountains where they can see low record temperatures of -34°F. Observable increases in temperature and less snowfall accumulations generate concern for these businesses that rely not only on snow but temperatures low enough to produce their own snow. To understand what may happen in the future, it is pertinent to examine past and ongoing trends. Yearly snowfall data from fall 2010 to spring 2018 were obtained from the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) and interpolated using ordinary kriging. Teleconnections (Arctic Oscillation, El Niño Southern Oscillation, and North Atlantic Oscillation) were examined to help compare similar years to observe possible relationships. The stations that had data for all of the years observed were spatially analyzed through regression kriging (RK) to determine how climate change will affect those areas. A kernel density map was then created from active CoCoRaHS stations to observe which areas need more stations to generate better interpolation data for future years. The results are impactful for the ski resorts, helping them to make effective business decisions based on climate trends and to promote the use of citizen science to improve research efforts.

In this study we aim to analyse the role of journalism in creating certain representations of the relationship between man and climate, especially concerning the climate change scenario. We assume that the news is a specific type of symbolic system and configures itself in a cultural construction built through the news values that work with maps of representation. Our main goal is to analyse the climate in Zero Hora, in its various editorials, based on news values to show how it happens in the news the relationship between man and climate. The specific objectives of the research focus on characterizing climate events for journalism, defining concepts such as weather and climate, to understand historically how the relationship between the media and climate and between journalism and meteorology. We present a mapping of climate events in Zero Hora through a quantitative survey of however qualitative approach to identify news values and their meanings based on certain aspects from the theory of Representations using contributions from Patrick Charaudeau, Stuart Hall and Cristina Ponte. We also conducted interviews with professionals in meteorology and journalism field in order to understand how they interact with the subject. Our study aimed to cover from the news that involve the variable weather in the day-by-day life up to the ones that deal with long term climate changes. This was sourced from the newspaper Zero Hora, in Rio Grande do Sul. We analysed 41 editions and mapped the coverage of 90 climate events. Considering the news values found, an observation can be concluded on how Zero Hora represents the relationship between men and climate. This study concludes that the newspaper represents man as a victim of the climate events. Furthermore there is a personification of the nature in these events, in which it is identified as a major culprit for the consequences, changes, destruction and death. This representation of the climate shows that there is no deep discussion over the influence of human intervention on nature itself. The news values that guide the approach to climate and weather in Zero Hora are not related to aspects such as environmental issues. Problems such as poor urban space planning, the siltation of rivers, high risk areas public policies, which can be considered as causes of flooding, for example, are not made evident in the news about the climate. / Nesse trabalho procuramos refletir sobre o papel do jornalismo ao construir determinadas representações da relação entre o homem e o clima, principalmente diante do cenário das mudanças climáticas. Partimos do pressuposto de que a notícia é um tipo específico de sistema simbólico e configura-se numa construção cultural, construída através dos valores-notícias que funcionam com mapas de representação. Nosso objetivo geral é analisar a cobertura do clima em Zero Hora, nas suas diferentes editorias, a partir dos valores-notícia para evidenciar como se dá, nas notícias, a relação homem e clima. Os objetivos específicos da pesquisa concentram-se em caracterizar os acontecimentos climáticos para o jornalismo, definir conceitos como tempo e clima, compreender como se dá historicamente a relação entre a imprensa e clima e entre jornalismo e meteorologia. Apresentamos um mapeamento dos acontecimentos climáticos em Zero Hora através de uma pesquisa qualitativa com abordagem quantitativa de caráter exploratório para identificarmos os valores-notícia, e seus significados a partir de alguns aspectos das teorias das Representações utilizando contribuições de Patrick Charaudeau, Stuart Hall e Cristina Ponte. Também realizamos entrevistas com profissionais da meteorologia e do jornalismo para compreender como eles interagem com o tema. Nosso estudo buscou analisar desde as notícias que envolvem as condições variáveis do tempo no dia-a-dia até as que mostram os efeitos das mudanças climáticas que podem levar anos para se manifestar, no jornal Zero Hora, da Rede Brasil Sul, no Rio Grande do Sul. Analisamos 41 edições e mapeamos a cobertura de 90 acontecimentos climáticos. A partir dos valores-notícia encontrados podemos observar como Zero Hora representa a relação homem e clima. O trabalho conclui que o jornal representa o homem como vítima dos eventos climáticos. Há uma personificação da natureza, diante desses eventos, na qual ela é apontada como a grande culpada pelas consequências, mudanças, destruição e mortes. Essa representação do clima mostra que não há um debate aprofundado sobre a própria intervenção do homem na natureza. Os valores-notícia que guiam a abordagem do clima e do tempo em Zero Hora não estão relacionados a aspectos como a problemática ambiental. Problemas como a má ocupação do espaço urbano, o assoreamento dos rios, os locais de risco e a falta de políticas públicas, os quais podem ser apontados como causadores de alagamentos ou enchentes, por exemplo, não são evidenciados nas notícias sobre o clima.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 2010.