Tools, Products and Services

Extreme heat events affect different people in different ways, and some people are at higher risk of experiencing heat-related illness if they do not have air conditioning. One way to reduce the public health impacts of extreme heat events is to check in regularly with susceptible people to see how they are coping. However, not everyone knows who is at most risk, how to recognize heat-related illness, or what to do in risky situations. This tool from the NCCEH was designed to help support people doing heat checks by providing all they key information and guidance in a 5-page package. This tool has been co-developed with Dr. Glen Kenny and his heat stress research group at the University of Ottawa.

The Heat Action Platform is a living, engagement-oriented tool for city officials, practitioners, and financial institutions to find guidance, both existing resources and tailor-made solutions, on reducing the human and economic impacts of extreme heat at the regional or municipal level. The platform offers opportunities to engage with world-leading experts across a diversity of disciplines to plan, fund, implement, and measure heat resilience actions.

The platform was developed by the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme, the Cool Coalition, RMI, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, Mission Innovation and the World Economic Forum’s Global Commission on BiodiverCities by 2030.

The platform can support you to:

Is a heatwave coming? Learn how to use the heatwave forecast and assessment maps to better prepare for heatwave conditions and their impacts. Find 3-day heatwave assessments and a full range of information in the Heat Knowledge Center including Heatwave Information from State Health Departments

This free, open-source, and user-friendly online tool can assist researchers, building practitioners, and policymakers in better understanding the conditions under which electric fans can be used to cool people safely.

A Climate Information Platform provides access to projections of over a dozen climate change indices for the globe.

Calculate over 70 indices associated with climate impacts, from historical daily temperature and precipitation data

The European Climate and Health Observatory aims to support Europe in preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change on human health by providing access to relevant information and tools, including regional resources on heat and health.

ClimApp is a mobile tool that translates climate service into personalized adaptation strategies to cope with thermal stress including heat and cold stress. ClimApp integrates weather forecast data with human heat balance models, to predict thermal strain experienced by humans. The app works globally in both hot and cold climates, in a temperature range from -50 C to +50 C. The App provides personalized health risk warning and advice for individuals, groups, organizations, public and private sectors, to support decision-making for adaptation strategies, and to improve the quality of life and health when facing thermal climate challenges.

Targeted users: Initial targeted users are outdoor workers, occupational health and safety professionals, caregivers for elderly people and children who are more vulnerable to extreme heat and cold. It can also be used by other sectors/activities such as outdoor and leisure activities, and by the general population.

Features:
1. Personalization: The app takes into account personal factors and vulnerability such as age, body mass index (BMI), activity level (determines human body internal heat production), clothing, acclimatization to heat.
2. Users can input their personal information into the app to provide improved predictions of the impact of weather on health.
3. Users can input different personal factors (e.g. work intensity) to obtain different predictions of the impact on health.
4. The weather forecast data are automatically extracted from local weather forecast through GPS.
5. Users can choose different locations, for example for travel planning.
6. The weather data inputs include not only air temperature, but also humidity, wind speed and solar radiation related mean radiant temperature. ClimApp has incorporated more than 10 relevant variables that affect human heat exchange between the body and the environment.
7. Four scientifically established international standards (ISO 7243 (WBGT), ISO 7933 (PHS), ISO 7730 (PMV), ISO 11079 (IREQ)) of human thermal environments are incorporated.
8. It covers outdoor and indoor as well as hot and cold environments.

An impact-based heat health warning system was developed by the National Institute of Meteorological Sciences based on 165 counties in South Korea. This system was developed using the daily maximum perceived temperature (PTmax), which is a human physiology-based thermal comfort index, and the Local ENSemble prediction system for the probability forecasts. Also, A risk matrix proposed by the World Meteorological Organization was employed for the impact-based forecasts of this system. The threshold value of the risk matrix was separately set depending on regions. In this system, the risk level was issued as four levels (GREEN, YELLOW, ORANGE, RED) for first, second, and third forecast lead-day (LD1, LD2, and LD3). The daily risk level issued by the system was evaluated using emergency heat-related patients obtained at six cities, including Seoul, Incheon, Daejeon, Gwangju, Daegu, and Busan, for LD1 to LD3. The high-risks level occurred more consistently in the shorter lead time (LD3  LD1) and the performance (rs) was increased from 0.42 (LD3) to 0.45 (LD1) in all cities. Especially, it showed good performance (rs = 0.51) in July and August, when heat stress is highest in South Korea. From an impact-based forecasting perspective, PTmax is one of the most suitable temperature indicators for issuing the health risk warnings by heat in South Korea.

The KNMI Climate Explorer is a tool to investigate the climate. It is a web-based application for climatic research that is managed by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and contains a comprehensive collection of climatic data sets and analysis tools.

The web application provides the ability to analyze climate data statistically. It contains more than 10 TB of climate data and dozens of analysis tools. It is part of the WMO Regional Climate Centre at KNMI.

Multi-country, remote survey to evaluate the interplay between COVID-19 mitigation measures, heat-health and livelihoods for populations living in densely populated urban areas. Survey data available for Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Cameroon. Data collected remotely via mobile phone survey with ~4400 randomly identified respondents. Data available in CSV file format. Data generated as part of the ESRC/GCRF project “Cool Infrastructures: Life with heat in the Off Grid City (ES/T008091/1), with additional funding from the Scottish Funding Council.

This project provides governments and built environment industries with a decision-support tool to inform urban policy, development assessment and planning practices related to potential building and urban interventions, used to cool streetscapes and cities, decrease energy consumption, protect the population’s vulnerable health-wise, and improve conditions of comfort.

As the world warms because of human-induced climate change, most of us can expect to see more days when temperatures hit 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher. See how your hometown has changed so far and how much hotter it may get.

We produce surface air temperature maps as a data product, but you can also view the data directly.

From April 2019 onward, the temperature summaries are based on ERA5. You can read more on the ‘Climate Bulletin – About the data page‘.

Up until March 2019, the temperature summaries were based on ERA-Interim, which can be accessed via the ECMWF website. You can read more information about these summaries on our surface air temperature analysis page.

This dataset provides a complete historical reconstruction for a set of indices representing human thermal stress and discomfort in outdoor conditions. This dataset, also known as ERA5-HEAT (Human thErmAl comforT) represents the current state-of-the-art for bioclimatology data record production.

The dataset is organised around two main variables:

• the mean radiant temperature (MRT)
• the universal thermal climate index (UTCI)

These variables describe how the human body experiences atmospheric conditions, specifically air temperature, humidity, ventilation and radiation.

The dataset is computed using the ERA5 reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium-Range Forecasts (ECMWF). ERA5 combines model data with observations from across the world to provide a globally complete and consistent description of the Earth’s climate and its evolution in recent decades. ERA5 is regarded as a good proxy for observed atmospheric conditions.

The dataset currently covers 01/01/1979 to near real time and is regularly extended as ERA5 data become available.

With this tool you can explore how the frequency and timing of extreme heat days and warm nights is expected to change under different emission scenarios. This data is derived from daily climate projections which have been downscaled from global climate models from the CMIP5 archive, using the Localized Constructed Analogs (LOCA) statistical technique developed by Scripps Institution Of Oceanography. LOCA is a statistical downscaling technique that uses past history to add improved fine-scale detail to global climate models.

As the climate changes in California, one of the more serious threats to the public health of Californians will stem primarily from the higher frequency of extreme conditions, principally more frequent, more intense, and longer heat waves. An increase in heat waves may increase the risk of heat stroke and dehydration. Find out how you can become better prepared and more resilient to increasing temperature and extreme heat events at Preparing California for Extreme Heat, a report put together by California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) and the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

The app was created by the Ministry of Health and the Department of Epidemiology of the Lazio Region Health Service – ASL Roma 1. It offers:

• the levels of health risk in each city for the three days of heatwave forecast through a map and a graphical summary of the bulletins for easy reference from portable devices;
• recommendations for prevention aimed at the population and subgroups at greatest risk and links to download guidelines, brochures and information material;
• an interactive map of floors, services and useful local numbers.

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L’App è stata realizzata dal Ministero della Salute e dal Dipartimento di epidemiologia del servizio sanitario della Regione Lazio – ASL Roma 1.​

Offre in particolare:​

• i livelli di rischio per la salute in ogni città per i tre giorni per cui viene sviluppata la previsione delle ondate di calore attraverso una mappa e una sintesi grafica dei bollettini di facile consultazione dai dispositivi portatili​
• le raccomandazioni per la prevenzione rivolte alla popolazione e ai sottogruppi a maggior rischio e link per scaricare Linee guida, brochure e materiale informativo​
• una mappa interattiva dei piani, dei servizi e dei numeri utili a livello locale.​

The Heat Warning and Information System (HWIS) is a coordinated provincial system that provides a consistent approach for processing and issuing heat warnings in Ontario, in order to better protect residents, vulnerable community members and visitors during the summer season. It was developed jointly by Environment and Climate Change Canada, Health Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, and Public Health Ontario, in consultation with provincial health units.

The HWIS provides criteria for issuing heat warnings. These criteria were selected after an extensive review of epidemiological evidence about the links between temperature, humidity, and health outcomes including mortality and illness.

HOW THE HWIS WORKS

The EOHU receives weather forecasts from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) in advance of issuing a heat warning. Based on ECCC’s heat warning, the Medical Officer of Health may issue a local Heat Warning if conditions are forecasted to last at least 2 days, or an Extended Heat Warning if conditions are forecasted to continue for 3 or more days.

WHAT HAPPENS DURING A HEAT WARNING OR EXTENDED HEAT WARNING?

Once the Medical Officer of Health declares a Heat Warning or Extended Heat Warning, notification of key response partners, community agencies and the public is initiated. Hot weather response activities focus on protecting vulnerable groups at increased risk for heat-related illness.

Extreme events such as heat and cold waves are of great importance for life on earth and also cause high economic damage. They also play a major role in the discussion of climate change, as climate model calculations predict a change in frequency, duration and intensity of such events.

In the years 2010 and 2011, there were a number of events in Europe that occurred as extreme temperature and rainfall anomalies. Examples include the cold winter of 2009/2010 and December 2010, particularly in Northern and Western Europe, the severe precipitation events in Eastern Central Europe in May, August and September 2010, the heat wave in Eastern Europe in summer 2010 and the drought in much of Europe in February until May 2011. All these events occurred over relatively large areas and continuously. They therefore had a more or less pronounced effect on the annual mean of the relevant climate elements in 2010, in some cases even on the global average for 2010.

For climate monitoring, it is important to record the characteristics of these events (in particular duration, intensity, spatial extent) in order to be able to compare them with other events and to make reliable assessments of the past and possibly future occurrence of such events.

Appropriate criteria are needed to identify a heat or cold wave. In a climatically heterogeneous area such as Europe, it is a major challenge to find a uniform definition which can be applied to the entire continent. In practice, a number of very different definitions of extreme events are used from country to country, depending on the local climatic conditions and the special user requirements.

For the climatological assessment of a heat / cold wave, it is important to compare current heat and cold waves with earlier corresponding events. Therefore, a representation was chosen which displays not only current, but also historical heat waves and their properties (duration, intensity, spatial extent) on a diagram. Of interest here are above all large-scale heat and cold waves, which extend over several countries within Europe.

This representation was taken over from the French weather service Météo France, which had originally applied it to France. It has been adapted for the area of WMO Region VI, Europe.

To better prepare for excessive heat, the CariCOF has developed, and is now releasing experimental heat outlooks for the hotter part of the year (i.e. starting in May and up to October/November), containing forecast temperatures and heatwave frequency, as well as implications of the heat climatology and heat forecasts for the next three months.

Information in this Web app can help outdoor workers and their supervisors understand heat hazards to keep workers safe and productive, and even save lives. In the longer term, the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS) can help decision makers prepare for future extreme heat events.

Explore future heat events and social vulnerability in the US on this interactive map tool.

The World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools project is a community-based project to gather a census of cities around the world.

The overall aims of WUDAPT are to:

• use the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification framework as the starting point for characterizing cities in a consistent manner
• use Geo-Wiki to sample land cover and land use types across LCZs (e.g. impervious surfaces (buildings, roads, other), pervious surfaces, grassland, etc.)
• develop tools (online and mobile-based) to obtain other parameters such as building materials, building dimensions, canopy widths, etc.
• provide open access to this dataset so that researchers around the world can use the data for many different types of applications, from climate and weather modeling to energy balance studies
• provide basic tools in the portal to allows researchers to aggregate the data to a user-specified reference grid (resolution and starting location) and compare cities around the world.

For WUDAPT to work, we need to build a community of interested urban experts and interested researchers who will take active part by:

• using the training materials to classify your city into LCZs
• contributing your LCZ map to WUDAPT
• helping us to collect other parameters using the online and mobile-based tools that will be developed.

This platform displays census-tract level surface urban heat island (SUHI) intensities for US urbanized areas (polygons with red boundaries), as well as socioeconomic information at the same level of aggregation. Use the search bar to find your urbanized area of interest. Click your neighborhood, and the corresponding SUHI and population statistics will be listed below.

The SUHI intensity, as calculated here, is the difference in surface temperature between the built-up and non-built up pixels of an urbanized area. Since these estimates are based on satellite observations, they are valid for clear-sky conditions. More information about the methodology used to generate this dataset can be found in: Chakraborty, T., Hsu, A., Manya, D., & Sheriff, G. (2020). A spatially explicit surface urban heat island database for the United States: Characterization, uncertainties, and possible applications., ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

A nivel global, existen evidencias contundentes de los riesgos a la salud frente al exceso de calor o temperaturas muy elevadas. El SAT-OCS anticipa a la población acerca de situaciones meteorológicas extremas y sus posibles efectos en la salud y mortalidad. El objetivo es que tanto la población como los organismos de protección civil puedan tomar las medidas de prevención, mitigación y de respuesta adecuadas a cada nivel de alerta.

Este Sistema se basa en los resultados del proyecto de investigación “Mortalidad por olas de calor en el semestre cálido 2013-2014 en las regiones del centro y norte de la República Argentina. Estudio ecológico”, realizado por un equipo interdisciplinario conformado por profesionales de las ciencias de la salud, de las ciencias sociales y de las ciencias de la atmósfera, entre los cuales se contó con integrantes de Ministerio de Salud de la Nación y del Servicio Meteorológico Nacional. En esta investigación se analizaron y caracterizaron los efectos de las olas de calor del semestre cálido (octubre a marzo) 2013-2014 sobre la mortalidad en la región centro-norte de la Argentina, evidenciando un aumento significativo de la mortalidad bajo ola de calor.

This interactive map allows you to download district-specific fact sheets for all 433 Congressional districts in the contiguous United States. (Fact sheets are also available in Spanish.) You can move and zoom the map to your area of interest. Click on any district to access the download link.

You can also learn more about how to use the map and fact sheets, including ways to ensure elected officials and candidates are aware of this information.

Information is drawn from the July 2019 report, Killer Heat in the United States: Climate Choices and the Future of Dangerously Hot Days, which highlights the rapid, widespread increases in extreme heat that are projected to occur over the coming decades due to climate change.

The results highlight the stark choice before us: We can continue on our current path, where we fail to reduce heat-trapping emissions and extreme heat soars. Or we can take bold and rapid action now to reduce emissions and prevent the worst from becoming reality.

The impact of extreme temperatures on health and wellbeing is rising up policy agendas in many cities. The Excel-based Heat Resilient Cities benefits tool has been designed to help city planners and decision-makers to quantify the health, economic and environmental benefits of common urban heat adaptation actions. Cities can use this information to make the case for urban heat adaptation investments, and to prioritise the actions that are likely to have the most positive impact locally.

Users can calculate the benefits brought by specific parks and green infrastructure, water bodies such as rivers and lakes, and cool and vegetative surfaces. The tool can also extrapolate results from these specific investments to calculate the benefits of scaling-up across the whole of the city.

The tool was developed with guidance from cities which participate in the C40 Cool Cities Network, and from urban heat and health impact specialists. It has been piloted with the cities of Medellín and São Paulo – read below for a flavour of the results for both cities, or the case studies for full details.

Access the Heat Resilient Cities benefits tool and calculate benefits for your city’s actions via the Download button on this page. The tool will also soon be available here in Spanish. Instructions for using the tool are given in the first two tabs (Intro and Workflow) of the Excel file. Contact Neuni Farhad and Snigdha Garg with any questions about how to use the tool and interpret the results. You can also learn how the tool was developed in the methodology note.

EM-DAT provides an objective basis for vulnerability assessment and rational decision-making in disaster situations. For example, it helps policymakers identify the disaster types that are most common in a given country and that have had significant historical impacts on human populations. In addition to providing information on the human impact of disasters – such as the number of people killed, injured or affected – EM-DAT provides disaster-related economic damage estimates and disaster-specific international aid contributions.

The Heat-Health Watch Service is designed to help healthcare professionals manage through periods of extreme temperature. The service acts as an early warning system forewarning of periods of high temperatures, which may affect the health of the UK public.

The Heat-Health Watch Service operates in England from 1 June to 15 September each year, in association with Public Health England. This is the period when temperature thresholds are most likely to be reached. However, should thresholds for an alert be reached outside of this period, an extraordinary heat-health alert will be issued and stakeholders are advised to take the usual public health actions.

The Met Office forecasts day-time and night-time maximum temperatures, which are monitored regionally. When certain heat thresholds are passed, a warning is issued and sent to relevant health professionals and people working in social care as well as displayed on our website. This enables health professionals to take action to minimise the impact of the heat on people’s health.

Advisories and monitoring of high temperatures occurs in France between June and August. Meteo France coordinates and collaborates with the Ministry of Health to issue warnings about potential heatwaves.

National heatwave monitoring and forecasting service for Australia. Provides monitoring from the past two three day periods and forecasts heatwaves for the next three to five days.

Heat-health warning system for the U.S. Each NWS Forecast Office issues a specific forecast for their region. They also provide a contiguous U.S. forecast map of maximum and minimum temperatures in real-time and maximum heat index forecasts.

Online interactive GIS map of the heatwave risk of European cities based on historical data and climate change projections.

Medium range heatwave forecasts for Europe for 1-9 day lead times. Forecasts are updated each day and issued for the next 9 days. The forecasts from the past nine days are also available so users can monitor the development of the event.

Provides extreme heat warnings and alerts for Europe. Information is displayed on an interactive map with available reports and warnings that can be downloaded for each country that have high alerts.

Provides forecasts for excessive heat and above normal temperatures for the United States at 3-7 day lead times.

This mobile application lets outdoor workers and supervisors calculate the heat index for their worksite. Based on the heat index, the app indicates the risk level to outdoor workers. Users can get suggestions about actions to take at different risk levels to protect workers from heat-related illness. The app is available for Android and iPhone devices, in English and Spanish.

Repository for cool surface and urban heat island information. The Knowledge Base is a user-friendly tool to find research, program materials, sample documents, presentations, case studies, codes and standards, videos, images and other relevant items from around the world.

The California Heat Assessment Tool (CHAT) was developed to help state and local public health officials understand how heat vulnerability will change with increasing temperatures due to climate change. The tool helps users identify heat vulnerable areas based upon changes in high heat days under different climate scenarios and social, health and environmental vulnerability factors. The study defines “Heat Health Events” (HHEs) as heat events that cause negative public health impacts – and the study found that vulnerable groups may be more sensitive to high-heat days by as much as 6 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit as compared to the general population. The tool helps users determine how climate change will affect the severity, duration, and shifts in timing of HHEs under different emissions scenarios.

This freely available application allows investigators to input a number of parameters associated with the environment, task and individual to evaluate the work scenario’s potential risks and controls without requiring access to a computer. Based on the input data, the app uses a number of algorithms to produce predicted core body temperature and water loss graphs and reports. It is envisaged that the app will become a useful tool for the practicing occupational health and safety professional in the investigation and control of heat stress in the field.

EXTREMA Global is a suite of services to help Cities become resilient to heat. Any new City in the World can be integrated within days. Each city can choose the suite of services to implement with many customizations including native language.

EXTREMA Global brings together all information and services to survive the heat. It provides tools to City authorities for long term planning, seasonal preparedness and day-to-day management during heatwaves. All available and updated information about cooling spaces is fed to citizens and visitors via EXTREMA Global multilingual mobile app, including temperature reading and heat risk at user’s location, nearest cooling spaces and drinking water spots, multiple user profiles, city messages, as well as cool routes and cooling spaces rating add-ons.

Furthermore, the Service Portfolio includes Dashboard for the Authorities, High resolution maps of city hot spots, and Planning and analytics tools.

This platform allows users to engage with our findings and explore the 2019 report data at country specific, regional and income group level. The data visualisations are free to use and share

The maps and data show the median of the number of heat waves in a multi-model ensemble of the near future (2020–2052) and the latter half of the century (2068–2100) under the RCP4.5 scenario, and for the same time periods but under RCP8.5