Urban Climate Research Center and School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Department of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA.
Int J Biometeorol. 2017 Sep;61(Suppl 1):59-69. doi: 10.1007/s00484-017-1412-3. Epub 2017 Jul 27.
Improvements in global sustainability, health, and equity will largely be determined by the extent to which cities are able to become more efficient, hospitable, and productive places. The development and evolution of urban areas has a significant impact on local and regional weather and climate, which subsequently affect people and other organisms that live in and near cities. Biometeorologists, researchers who study the impact of weather and climate on living creatures, are well positioned to help evaluate and anticipate the consequences of urbanization on the biosphere. Motivated by the 60th anniversary of the International Society of Biometeorology, we reviewed articles published in the Society's International Journal of Biometeorology over the period 1974-2017 to understand if and how biometeorologists have directed attention to urban areas. We found that interest in urban areas has rapidly accelerated; urban-oriented articles accounted for more than 20% of all articles published in the journal in the most recent decade. Urban-focused articles in the journal span five themes: measuring urban climate, theoretical foundations and models, human thermal comfort, human morbidity and mortality, and ecosystem impacts. Within these themes, articles published in the journal represent a sizeable share of the total academic literature. More explicit attention from urban biometeorologists publishing in the journal to low- and middle-income countries, indoor environments, animals, and the impacts of climate change on human health would help ensure that the distinctive perspectives of biometeorology reach the places, people, and processes that are the foci of global sustainability, health, and equity goals.
全球可持续性、健康和公平的改善在很大程度上取决于城市能够变得更加高效、宜居和富有成效的程度。城市地区的发展和演变对当地和区域的天气和气候有重大影响，进而影响生活在城市及其周边的人和其他生物。生物气象学家是研究天气和气候对生物影响的研究人员，他们非常适合帮助评估和预测城市化对生物圈的影响。受国际生物气象学会成立 60 周年的启发，我们回顾了该学会的《国际生物气象学杂志》在 1974 年至 2017 年期间发表的文章，以了解生物气象学家是否以及如何关注城市地区。我们发现，对城市地区的兴趣迅速加速；在最近十年出版的杂志中，以城市为导向的文章占所有文章的 20%以上。杂志上的城市重点文章涵盖了五个主题：测量城市气候、理论基础和模型、人体热舒适、人类发病率和死亡率以及生态系统影响。在这些主题中，杂志上发表的文章在总学术文献中占有相当大的份额。在该杂志上发表的城市生物气象学家如果更多地关注低收入和中等收入国家、室内环境、动物以及气候变化对人类健康的影响，将有助于确保生物气象学的独特观点能够覆盖到全球可持续性、健康和公平目标的重点地方、人群和进程。
