Tom Matthews
Biographic Data
| ID | 4369683 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tom Matthews |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tom |
| FAMILY NAME | Matthews |
| SIGNATURE | MATTHEWS T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Loughborough University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6295-1870 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Divided by a common language? The impact of a joint international field trip on student skills
Fieldwork is often cited as one of the most important and effective parts of geography education, despite increasing scrutiny over its environmental and financial cost. As a result, it is imperative that any overseas fieldwork is as impactful as possible, enabling deep experiential learning. Here, we investigate the success of a joint field trip (Liverpool John Moores University, UK and Southern Connecticut State University, USA) to East Iceland.…
The IPCC reports and HE Geography: Opportunities lost and found
Climate change education within UK HE Geography has not produced a common curriculum, despite having an obvious set of learning resources, in the form of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report series, which has in many ways structured knowledge and understanding on climate change, its impacts and mitigation globally for several decades.Use of the IPCC reports is devolved to module or course-unit level, and is very varied as a…
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 …
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…
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 emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance
Humid heat extremes are rapidly increasing and may have already briefly exceeded humans’ physiological survivability limit.
Climate Change in the Hindu Kush Himalayas: Basis and Gaps
An Overview of Physical Risks in the Mt. Everest Region
In April and May 2019, as part of National Geographic and Rolex's Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, an interdisciplinary scientific effort conducted a suite of research on the mountain and recognized many changing dynamics, including emergent risks resulting from natural and anthropogenic changes to the biological system. In this Primer, the diverse research teams highlight risks to ecosystem and human health, geologic hazards, and changing cl…
Pushing Climate Change Science to the Roof of the World
Precipitation Characteristics and Moisture Source Regions on Mt. Everest in the Khumbu, Nepal
Precipitation is critical to the water towers of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya-Karakoram region,\nexerting an important control on glacier mass balance and the water resources for 1.65 billion\npeople. As hydroclimatic extremes and water stress have emerged as key hazards in the context\nof climate change, Nepal’s Khumbu region overlaps key vulnerabilities. Here we investigate the\nregion’s precipitation characteristics and moisture sources through ana…
Mining Social Media to Identify Heat Waves
Heat waves are one of the deadliest of natural hazards and their frequency and intensity will likely increase as the climate continues to warm. A challenge in studying these phenomena is the lack of a universally accepted quantitative definition that captures both temperature anomalies and associated mortality. We test the hypothesis that social media mining can be used to identify heat wave mortality. Applying the approach to India, we find that…
Super Storm Desmond: A process-based assessment
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…
Social Control Theory: Evaluating a Model for the Study of Adolescent Alcohol and Drug Use
Social Control Theory: Evaluating a Model for the Study of Adolescent Alcohol and Drug Use
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…
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…
Social Control Theory: Evaluating a Model for the Study of Adolescent Alcohol and Drug Use
Super Storm Desmond: A process-based assessment
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…
Mining Social Media to Identify Heat Waves
Heat waves are one of the deadliest of natural hazards and their frequency and intensity will likely increase as the climate continues to warm. A challenge in studying these phenomena is the lack of a universally accepted quantitative definition that captures both temperature anomalies and associated mortality. We test the hypothesis that social media mining can be used to identify heat wave mortality. Applying the approach to India, we find that…
The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance
Humid heat extremes are rapidly increasing and may have already briefly exceeded humans’ physiological survivability limit.
Climate Change in the Hindu Kush Himalayas: Basis and Gaps
An Overview of Physical Risks in the Mt. Everest Region
In April and May 2019, as part of National Geographic and Rolex's Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, an interdisciplinary scientific effort conducted a suite of research on the mountain and recognized many changing dynamics, including emergent risks resulting from natural and anthropogenic changes to the biological system. In this Primer, the diverse research teams highlight risks to ecosystem and human health, geologic hazards, and changing cl…
Pushing Climate Change Science to the Roof of the World
Precipitation Characteristics and Moisture Source Regions on Mt. Everest in the Khumbu, Nepal
Precipitation is critical to the water towers of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya-Karakoram region,\nexerting an important control on glacier mass balance and the water resources for 1.65 billion\npeople. As hydroclimatic extremes and water stress have emerged as key hazards in the context\nof climate change, Nepal’s Khumbu region overlaps key vulnerabilities. Here we investigate the\nregion’s precipitation characteristics and moisture sources through ana…
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…
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…
The IPCC reports and HE Geography: Opportunities lost and found
Climate change education within UK HE Geography has not produced a common curriculum, despite having an obvious set of learning resources, in the form of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report series, which has in many ways structured knowledge and understanding on climate change, its impacts and mitigation globally for several decades.Use of the IPCC reports is devolved to module or course-unit level, and is very varied as a…
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 …
Divided by a common language? The impact of a joint international field trip on student skills
Fieldwork is often cited as one of the most important and effective parts of geography education, despite increasing scrutiny over its environmental and financial cost. As a result, it is imperative that any overseas fieldwork is as impactful as possible, enabling deep experiential learning. Here, we investigate the success of a joint field trip (Liverpool John Moores University, UK and Southern Connecticut State University, USA) to East Iceland.…
Environmental Science (11 works) · Geography (11 works) · Climate change (9 works) · Meteorology (7 works) · Geology (6 works) · Climate variability and models (5 works) · Climatology (5 works) · Oceanography (5 works) · Cryospheric studies and observations (4 works) · Ecology (4 works)