Reduced Soil Moisture Contributes to More Intense and More Frequent Heat Waves in Northern China

Heat waves have attracted increasing attention in recent years due to their frequent occurrence.The present study investigates the heat wave intensity and duration in China using daily maximum temperature from 753 weather stations from 1960 to 2010.In addition,its relationships with soil moisture local forcing on the ten-day period and monthly scales in spring and summer are analyzed using soil moisture data from weather stations and ERA40 reanalysis data.And finally,a mechanistic analysis is carried out using CAM5.1（Community Atmosphere Model,version 5.1） coupled with CLM2（Community Land Model,version 2）.It is found that the heat wave frequency and duration show a sandwich distribution across China,with high occurrence rates in Southeast China and Northwest China,where the maximum frequency and duration exceeded 2.1 times and 9 days per year,respectively.The increasing trends in both duration and intensity occurred to the north of 35°N.The relationships between heat wave frequency in northern China in July（having peak distribution） and soil moisture in the earlier stage（from March to June） and corresponding period（July） are further analyzed,revealing a strong negative correlation in March,June and July,and thus showing that soil moisture in spring and early summer could be an important contributor to heat waves in July via positive subtropical high anomalies.However,the time scales of influence were relatively short in the semi-humid and humid regions,and longer in the arid region.The contribution in the corresponding period took place via positive subtropical high anomalies and positive surface skin temperature and sensible heat flux anomalies.

Specific Enthalpy Based Heat Stress Index for Indoor Environments without Radiation Effect

Over 100 human thermal indices have been developed to predict the combined thermal impact on the body.In principle,these indices based on energy thermal budget equations should not only be the most complex but also be the most accurate.However,the simple indices based on algebraic or statistical models[e.g.,the wet-bulb globe temperature(WBGT)]continue to be the most popular.A new heat stress index,the enthalpy dry-bulb temperature(EnD)for indoor environments is developed and validated in this study.The EnD index is unique in that it uses the air specific enthalpy,not the wet-bulb temperature,to measure the latent heat transfer from the skin to the surrounding environment.Theoretically,the EnD index can be treated as the equivalent temperature based on the convective heat transfer coefficient h_(c).Comparison is made between the EnD index and the widely used WBGT index based on the experimental data taken from three independent studies available in the scientific literature.The results show that the EnD index can reduce the overestimation of the dry-bulb air temperature and thus reduce heat stress in most cases,especially for hot and humid environments.It can be concluded that the EnD index has the potential to replace the WBGT index as the standard heat stress index in the future.