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Key Takeaways:
- Researchers at MIT have developed a new measure called “outdoor days” to describe the impact of rising temperatures on the number of days per year suitable for outdoor activities.
- The new system allows users to define what constitutes an acceptable outdoor day and see how the number of such days will change in specific regions around the world.
- The data generated from this system shows that there will be winners and losers in terms of outdoor days, with a concentration of losers in the global South.
Quotes:
- For most people, reading about the difference between a global average temperature rise of 1.5 C versus 2 C doesn’t conjure up a clear image of how their daily lives will actually be affected. So, researchers at MIT have come up with a different way of measuring and describing what global climate change patterns, in specific regions around the world, will mean for people’s daily activities and their quality of life.
- [MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering Elfatih] Eltahir says he got the idea for this new system during his hourlong daily walks in the Boston area. “That’s how I interface with the temperature every day,” he says. He found that there have been more winter days recently when he could walk comfortably than in past years.
- First of all, there will be winners and losers, and the losers tend to be concentrated in the global south. “In the North, in a place like Russia or Canada, you gain a significant number of outdoor days. And when you go south to places like Bangladesh or Sudan, it’s bad news. You get significantly fewer outdoor days. It is very striking.”
Visit the site and check your favorite places around the world:
globaloutdoordays
“Outdoor days” are defined as the number of days with moderate temperature, neither too cold nor too hot, that allows most people to enjoy outdoor activities, like walking, jogging, running, cycling, and more broadly enjoy travel and tourism. The results are derived from 30 CMIP6 models under the SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios.
