R L Wilby
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 1340779 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | R L Wilby |
| NOMBRES | R L |
| APELLIDO | Wilby |
| FIRMA | WILBY R L |
| AFILIACIONES | Loughborough University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4662-9344 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 28 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 33 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 28 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1995 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
A mixed‐methods approach to researching extreme heat
Extreme heat is both a chronic and acute threat to the health and well‐being of urban populations. The aim of this paper is to share experiences from using a range of quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct research on extreme indoor heat, plus highlight the benefits of taking this more holistic approach. Research conducted in urban Ghana measured temperatures in homes and workplaces, evaluated existing coping strategies of residents, and…
A whole island approach to scoping renewable energy sites and yields
Island communities are particularly vulnerable to climate change and energy insecurity; renewable energy can counter both threats. This study takes a whole island approach to scoping wind and solar energy potential. The Isle of Man (IOM) was selected because of the limited development of renewables to date, plus high reliance on energy imports. Potential sites for renewables development were evaluated using social, environmental, technical, econo…
Evaporation losses from residential swimming pools and water features under climate variability and change
Numerous studies have evaluated maximum evaporation rates from open water bodies (Eo). However, relatively little attention has been paid to evaporation losses from residential swimming pools and outdoor water features. This study evaluates the combined impact of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and climate change on Eo for 1859 water bodies with total area ~173,500 m 2 on Palm Jumeirah Island, Dubai. Historic (2010–20) annual mean Eo from ope…
Google Trends indicators to inform water planning and drought management
Indicators are important tools for tracking the socio-environmental impacts of droughts and building resilience to climate change. We begin with an overview of metrics used for water planning and drought management, with particular emphasis on the UK. We explain how considerations of cost, immediacy, access, consistency, relevance, reliability and others denote the suitability of information for developing new indicators. We then demonstrate the …
AI literacy in geographic education and research
Concerns about runaway artificial intelligence (AI) - including large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT - are at the forefront of contemporary political, social, and scientific discourse. This commentary provides a first look at ChatGPT's capabilities and limitations in supporting geographic research, critical thinking, learning, and curriculum development. We assessed ChatGPT's geographic knowledge, synthesising abilities, and potential for ex…
Abrupt drought termination in the British–Irish Isles driven by high atmospheric vapour transport
During protracted dry spells, there is considerable interest from water managers, media and the public in when and how drought termination (DT) will occur. Robust answers to these questions require better understanding of the hydroclimatic drivers of DT than currently available. Integrated vapour transport (IVT) has been found to drive DT in Western North America, but evidence elsewhere is lacking. To evaluate this association for the British–Iri…
Climate Gentrification
There is growing evidence that physical climate hazards—such as floods and wildfires—affect property prices. Climate change scenarios suggest more frequent and severe physical climate hazards in the future, coinciding with greater exposure of populations to such threats. This raises concern because changes in property prices pose risks to homeowners’ financial status, as well as to the insurance and mortgage industries, bank portfolios, and there…
Interpreting extreme climate impacts from large ensemble simulations—are they unseen or unrealistic
Large-ensemble climate model simulations can provide deeper understanding of the characteristics and causes of extreme events than historical observations, due to their larger sample size. However, adequate evaluation of simulated ‘unseen’ events that are more extreme than those seen in historical records is complicated by observational uncertainties and natural variability. Consequently, conventional evaluation and correction methods cannot dete…
Latent heat must be visible in climate communications
Anthropogenic forcing is driving energy accumulation in the Earth system, including increases in the sensible heat content of the atmosphere, as measured by dry‐bulb temperature—the metric that is almost universally used for communications about climate change. The atmosphere is also moistening, though, representing an accumulation of latent heat, which is partly concealed by dry‐bulb temperature trends. We highlight that, consistent with basic t…
The utility of Google Trends as a tool for evaluating flooding in data‐scarce places
Google Trends (GT) offers a historical database of global internet searches with the potential to complement conventional records of environmental hazards, especially in regions where formal hydrometeorological data are scarce. We evaluate the extent to which GT can discern heavy rainfall and floods in Kenya and Uganda during the period 2014 to 2018. We triangulate counts of flood searches from GT with available rainfall records and media reports…
Towards pragmatism in climate risk analysis and adaptation
The Asia-Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to climate variability and change. This reflects high exposure to hydroclimatic hazards such as tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, and heatwaves. Rapidly growing cities and low-lying coastal zones/estuaries also face threats from sea level rise and storm surges. However, climate model projections remain very uncertain about most of these risks, so water infrastructure and operations need to consid…
Monitoring and moderating extreme indoor temperatures in low-income urban communities
Climate change presents significant threats to human health, especially for low-income urban communities in the Global South. Despite numerous studies of heat stress, surprisingly little is known about the temperatures actually encountered by people in their homes, or the benefits of affordable adaptations. This paper examines indoor air temperature measurements gathered from 47 living rooms within eight low-income communities of Accra and Tamale…
The Future of The Geographical Journal
These are unprecedented times of prominent structural changes and uncertainties as societies, economies, cultures, and human-environment relations adapt and reconfigure in various ways. The global pandemic has brought us to a place of urgency and reflection that exposes and has intensified longer-term concerns about the climate emergency, rising levels of economic austerity, altered geopolitical alliances, and infrastructural changes including th…
Disruption of emergency response to vulnerable populations during floods
Cities and extreme weather events
Extreme weather events disproportionately affect residents of low-income urban settlements in the global South. This paper explores the impacts of extreme heat and flooding on water and electricity services in Accra and Tamale, Ghana. Interviews with water/electricity providers and water quality analysis are combined with household interviews, focus group discussions and observations conducted in eight low-income urban settlements. The findings h…
Impact of extreme weather conditions on healthcare provision in urban Ghana
Intensity-duration-frequency curves at the global scale
Intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves usefully quantify extreme precipitation over various durations and return periods for engineering design. Unfortunately, sparse, infrequent, or short observations hinder the creation of robust IDF curves in many locations. This paper presents the first global, multi-temporal (1–360 h) dataset of generalized extreme value (GEV) parameters at 31 km resolution dubbed PXR-2 (Parametrized eXtreme Rain). Using …
Storylines
As climate change research becomes increasingly applied, the need for actionable information is growing rapidly. A key aspect of this requirement is the representation of uncertainties. The conventional approach to representing uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change is probabilistic, based on ensembles of climate model simulations. In the face of deep uncertainties, the known limitations of this approach are becoming increasingly appar…
Demonstrating the utility of a drought termination framework
Land surface models systematically overestimate the intensity
Modes of climate variability and associated bird communities in India
Birds are sensitive to climate variability and change. This pilot study explores variations in bird communities in India under contrasting phases of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation ( ENSO ) and Indian Ocean Dipole ( IOD ). Statistical analyses were performed using monthly bird data for the years 1990–2015 in Goa and Tamil Nadu. Monthly precipitation, temperature, the Oceanic Niño Index and the Dipole Mode Index were used as explanatory variables…
Extreme multi-basin flooding linked with extra-tropical cyclones
Fluvial floods are typically investigated as 'events' at the single basin-scale, hence flood management authorities may underestimate the threat of flooding across multiple basins driven by large-scale and nearly concurrent atmospheric event(s). We pilot a national-scale statistical analysis of the spatio-temporal characteristics of extreme multi-basin flooding (MBF) episodes, using peak river flow data for 260 basins in Great Britain , a sentine…
Super Storm Desmond
Super' Storm Desmond broke meteorological and hydrological records during a record warm year in the British-Irish Isles (BI). The severity of the storm may be a harbinger of expected changes to regional hydroclimate as global temperatures continue to rise. Here, we adopt a process-based approach to investigate the potency of Desmond, and explore the extent to which climate change may have been a contributory factor. Through an Eulerian assessment…
Allowable CO2 emissions based on regional and impact-related climate targets
Examination of climate risk using a modified uncertainty matrix framework—Applications in the water sector
Introduction to adapting water management to climate change
There is growing international recognition of the need for practical guidance on evaluating risks and adapting freshwaters to climate change, drawing on both field and model evidence. This special section of A rea demonstrates the varied ways in which geographers, environmental and social scientists, engineers and resource managers are beginning to address these urgent needs. This editorial considers the long history of field experimentation and …
Impact of extreme weather conditions on healthcare provision in urban Ghana
Cities and extreme weather events
Extreme weather events disproportionately affect residents of low-income urban settlements in the global South. This paper explores the impacts of extreme heat and flooding on water and electricity services in Accra and Tamale, Ghana. Interviews with water/electricity providers and water quality analysis are combined with household interviews, focus group discussions and observations conducted in eight low-income urban settlements. The findings h…
AI literacy in geographic education and research
Concerns about runaway artificial intelligence (AI) - including large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT - are at the forefront of contemporary political, social, and scientific discourse. This commentary provides a first look at ChatGPT's capabilities and limitations in supporting geographic research, critical thinking, learning, and curriculum development. We assessed ChatGPT's geographic knowledge, synthesising abilities, and potential for ex…
The Future of The Geographical Journal
These are unprecedented times of prominent structural changes and uncertainties as societies, economies, cultures, and human-environment relations adapt and reconfigure in various ways. The global pandemic has brought us to a place of urgency and reflection that exposes and has intensified longer-term concerns about the climate emergency, rising levels of economic austerity, altered geopolitical alliances, and infrastructural changes including th…
Climate Gentrification
There is growing evidence that physical climate hazards—such as floods and wildfires—affect property prices. Climate change scenarios suggest more frequent and severe physical climate hazards in the future, coinciding with greater exposure of populations to such threats. This raises concern because changes in property prices pose risks to homeowners’ financial status, as well as to the insurance and mortgage industries, bank portfolios, and there…
The utility of Google Trends as a tool for evaluating flooding in data‐scarce places
Google Trends (GT) offers a historical database of global internet searches with the potential to complement conventional records of environmental hazards, especially in regions where formal hydrometeorological data are scarce. We evaluate the extent to which GT can discern heavy rainfall and floods in Kenya and Uganda during the period 2014 to 2018. We triangulate counts of flood searches from GT with available rainfall records and media reports…
Disruption of emergency response to vulnerable populations during floods
Examination of climate risk using a modified uncertainty matrix framework—Applications in the water sector
Latent heat must be visible in climate communications
Anthropogenic forcing is driving energy accumulation in the Earth system, including increases in the sensible heat content of the atmosphere, as measured by dry‐bulb temperature—the metric that is almost universally used for communications about climate change. The atmosphere is also moistening, though, representing an accumulation of latent heat, which is partly concealed by dry‐bulb temperature trends. We highlight that, consistent with basic t…
Modes of climate variability and associated bird communities in India
Birds are sensitive to climate variability and change. This pilot study explores variations in bird communities in India under contrasting phases of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation ( ENSO ) and Indian Ocean Dipole ( IOD ). Statistical analyses were performed using monthly bird data for the years 1990–2015 in Goa and Tamil Nadu. Monthly precipitation, temperature, the Oceanic Niño Index and the Dipole Mode Index were used as explanatory variables…
Ecological benefits of creating messy rivers
This study explores the ecological effects of a woody bank revetment in an upper reach of the River Manifold, Staffordshire, UK. Significantly higher abundances of macroinvertebrates were recorded immediately downstream of the deciduous bank revetment compared with a reference site, in 3 out of 4 months surveyed. The watercourse at the revetment also had significantly higher species richness of aquatic fauna than the reference site in some months…
A Review of Ozone Pollution in the United Kingdom and Ireland with an Analysis Using Lamb Weather Types
The control exercised by synoptic airflows on hourly ground level concentrations of ozone at 11 widely distributed monitoring sites in the UK during the period 1986/7-1990 is investigated. Regional airflows are categorized using the seven primary Weather Types of the Lamb (1972) Catalogue. Because of the complexity of troposheric ozone production, transport and decay, relationships vary between sites and the Lamb Weather Types (LWTs). Results con…
Robust adaptation to climate change
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: WILBY, R.L. and DESSAI, S., 2010. Robust adaptation to climate change. Weather, 65 (7), pp.180-185, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.543. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.
Examination of climate risk using a modified uncertainty matrix framework—Applications in the water sector
Introduction to adapting water management to climate change
There is growing international recognition of the need for practical guidance on evaluating risks and adapting freshwaters to climate change, drawing on both field and model evidence. This special section of A rea demonstrates the varied ways in which geographers, environmental and social scientists, engineers and resource managers are beginning to address these urgent needs. This editorial considers the long history of field experimentation and …
Ecological benefits of creating messy rivers
This study explores the ecological effects of a woody bank revetment in an upper reach of the River Manifold, Staffordshire, UK. Significantly higher abundances of macroinvertebrates were recorded immediately downstream of the deciduous bank revetment compared with a reference site, in 3 out of 4 months surveyed. The watercourse at the revetment also had significantly higher species richness of aquatic fauna than the reference site in some months…
Allowable CO2 emissions based on regional and impact-related climate targets
Extreme multi-basin flooding linked with extra-tropical cyclones
Fluvial floods are typically investigated as 'events' at the single basin-scale, hence flood management authorities may underestimate the threat of flooding across multiple basins driven by large-scale and nearly concurrent atmospheric event(s). We pilot a national-scale statistical analysis of the spatio-temporal characteristics of extreme multi-basin flooding (MBF) episodes, using peak river flow data for 260 basins in Great Britain , a sentine…
Super Storm Desmond
Super' Storm Desmond broke meteorological and hydrological records during a record warm year in the British-Irish Isles (BI). The severity of the storm may be a harbinger of expected changes to regional hydroclimate as global temperatures continue to rise. Here, we adopt a process-based approach to investigate the potency of Desmond, and explore the extent to which climate change may have been a contributory factor. Through an Eulerian assessment…
Storylines
As climate change research becomes increasingly applied, the need for actionable information is growing rapidly. A key aspect of this requirement is the representation of uncertainties. The conventional approach to representing uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change is probabilistic, based on ensembles of climate model simulations. In the face of deep uncertainties, the known limitations of this approach are becoming increasingly appar…
Demonstrating the utility of a drought termination framework
Land surface models systematically overestimate the intensity
Modes of climate variability and associated bird communities in India
Birds are sensitive to climate variability and change. This pilot study explores variations in bird communities in India under contrasting phases of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation ( ENSO ) and Indian Ocean Dipole ( IOD ). Statistical analyses were performed using monthly bird data for the years 1990–2015 in Goa and Tamil Nadu. Monthly precipitation, temperature, the Oceanic Niño Index and the Dipole Mode Index were used as explanatory variables…
Intensity-duration-frequency curves at the global scale
Intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves usefully quantify extreme precipitation over various durations and return periods for engineering design. Unfortunately, sparse, infrequent, or short observations hinder the creation of robust IDF curves in many locations. This paper presents the first global, multi-temporal (1–360 h) dataset of generalized extreme value (GEV) parameters at 31 km resolution dubbed PXR-2 (Parametrized eXtreme Rain). Using …
Disruption of emergency response to vulnerable populations during floods
Cities and extreme weather events
Extreme weather events disproportionately affect residents of low-income urban settlements in the global South. This paper explores the impacts of extreme heat and flooding on water and electricity services in Accra and Tamale, Ghana. Interviews with water/electricity providers and water quality analysis are combined with household interviews, focus group discussions and observations conducted in eight low-income urban settlements. The findings h…
Impact of extreme weather conditions on healthcare provision in urban Ghana
Towards pragmatism in climate risk analysis and adaptation
The Asia-Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to climate variability and change. This reflects high exposure to hydroclimatic hazards such as tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, and heatwaves. Rapidly growing cities and low-lying coastal zones/estuaries also face threats from sea level rise and storm surges. However, climate model projections remain very uncertain about most of these risks, so water infrastructure and operations need to consid…
Monitoring and moderating extreme indoor temperatures in low-income urban communities
Climate change presents significant threats to human health, especially for low-income urban communities in the Global South. Despite numerous studies of heat stress, surprisingly little is known about the temperatures actually encountered by people in their homes, or the benefits of affordable adaptations. This paper examines indoor air temperature measurements gathered from 47 living rooms within eight low-income communities of Accra and Tamale…
The Future of The Geographical Journal
These are unprecedented times of prominent structural changes and uncertainties as societies, economies, cultures, and human-environment relations adapt and reconfigure in various ways. The global pandemic has brought us to a place of urgency and reflection that exposes and has intensified longer-term concerns about the climate emergency, rising levels of economic austerity, altered geopolitical alliances, and infrastructural changes including th…
Interpreting extreme climate impacts from large ensemble simulations—are they unseen or unrealistic
Large-ensemble climate model simulations can provide deeper understanding of the characteristics and causes of extreme events than historical observations, due to their larger sample size. However, adequate evaluation of simulated ‘unseen’ events that are more extreme than those seen in historical records is complicated by observational uncertainties and natural variability. Consequently, conventional evaluation and correction methods cannot dete…
Latent heat must be visible in climate communications
Anthropogenic forcing is driving energy accumulation in the Earth system, including increases in the sensible heat content of the atmosphere, as measured by dry‐bulb temperature—the metric that is almost universally used for communications about climate change. The atmosphere is also moistening, though, representing an accumulation of latent heat, which is partly concealed by dry‐bulb temperature trends. We highlight that, consistent with basic t…
The utility of Google Trends as a tool for evaluating flooding in data‐scarce places
Google Trends (GT) offers a historical database of global internet searches with the potential to complement conventional records of environmental hazards, especially in regions where formal hydrometeorological data are scarce. We evaluate the extent to which GT can discern heavy rainfall and floods in Kenya and Uganda during the period 2014 to 2018. We triangulate counts of flood searches from GT with available rainfall records and media reports…
Abrupt drought termination in the British–Irish Isles driven by high atmospheric vapour transport
During protracted dry spells, there is considerable interest from water managers, media and the public in when and how drought termination (DT) will occur. Robust answers to these questions require better understanding of the hydroclimatic drivers of DT than currently available. Integrated vapour transport (IVT) has been found to drive DT in Western North America, but evidence elsewhere is lacking. To evaluate this association for the British–Iri…
Climate Gentrification
There is growing evidence that physical climate hazards—such as floods and wildfires—affect property prices. Climate change scenarios suggest more frequent and severe physical climate hazards in the future, coinciding with greater exposure of populations to such threats. This raises concern because changes in property prices pose risks to homeowners’ financial status, as well as to the insurance and mortgage industries, bank portfolios, and there…
Google Trends indicators to inform water planning and drought management
Indicators are important tools for tracking the socio-environmental impacts of droughts and building resilience to climate change. We begin with an overview of metrics used for water planning and drought management, with particular emphasis on the UK. We explain how considerations of cost, immediacy, access, consistency, relevance, reliability and others denote the suitability of information for developing new indicators. We then demonstrate the …
AI literacy in geographic education and research
Concerns about runaway artificial intelligence (AI) - including large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT - are at the forefront of contemporary political, social, and scientific discourse. This commentary provides a first look at ChatGPT's capabilities and limitations in supporting geographic research, critical thinking, learning, and curriculum development. We assessed ChatGPT's geographic knowledge, synthesising abilities, and potential for ex…
Geography (27 obras) · Environmental Science (21 obras) · Climate change (18 obras) · Meteorology (14 obras) · Climatology (10 obras) · Computer Science (10 obras) · Ecology (9 obras) · Flood Risk Assessment and Management (9 obras) · Geology (9 obras) · Climate variability and models (8 obras)