We're so hot

https://youtu.be/nbjXUcRp6Uo

https://github.com/sodiffi/hot_source_server

Summary

Climate change is a long-lasted concern that causes many heat-related extremes, including global warming. Facing the issue of global warming, many high latitude countries are suffering from a natural phenomenon, heat waves. Based on different areas, the situation could escalate into more serious problems, such as drought, wildfire, air pollution, inadequate water capacity for irrigation, etc. It could even cause dermatological diseases to human beings. Despite being aware of this critical natural disaster, most people can’t react instantly and it’s mainly due to insufficient precautions. Therefore we developed a mobile application called HotSource(熱援). By using historical temperature information and crowd-sourced data for our algorithms designed for risk calculations, the detection of this serious damage can be adopted for daily decision making. 

How We Addressed This Challenge

Objectives of the Project

We expected to develop a mobile application that can let users search for any locations and check if heat waves are affecting that area. By awaring the situation, users can take precautions beforehand to avoid serious damage to their health or the environment.

To do so, a Heat Waves Risk Algorithm will be designed to operate a cross analysis using data provided by NASA. We will collect historical weather data including temperature, humidity and other related climate indicators from the weather database in each location. It will be used to confirm whether heat waves are taking place. Also, we will compare the data with geological features so that we can get to know if heat waves are causing any damage to agriculture or living beings.

For places with low rainfall and continuously high temperature, we will suggest our users to retain more water as it might have some water shortage problem. If this area has a high percentage of plant cover and low rainfall, It will have a high possibility of wildfire. We hope to develop a function to send out warning messages to local authorities and the public, so that they can prepare for it before it gets out of hand. Besides that, people will be able to upload local climate information as crowdsourcing data to optimize the output of our algorithm.

Our application should have an intuitive user interface. By clicking on any area on the map, the risk level of the heat waves will be shown and marked in different colors according to the Heat Index developed by National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration(NOAA). Searching information for specific locations will be allowed, too. 

Background Research

When the daily maximum temperature in an area is higher than its average maximum temperature by 5 °C (9 °F) or more, it is often referred to as “heat waves”. It is a pervasive natural hazard that can exact a heavy toll on human systems, affecting health, livelihoods and infrastructures. All over the world, more and more casualties have been caused by extreme climates. In Europe, 1,672 recorded disasters cumulated 159,438 deaths and US$ 476.5 billion in economic damages from 1970–2019. Although floods (38%) and storms (32%) were the most prevalent cause in the recorded disasters, extreme temperatures accounted for the highest number of deaths (93%), with 148,109 lives lost over the past 50 years.

In history, the two extreme heat waves of 2003 and 2010 in Europe accounted for the highest number of deaths (80%), with 127,946 lives lost in the two events. The 2003 heat wave was responsible for half of the deaths in Europe (45%) with a total of 72,210 deaths within the 15 affected countries. 

How We Developed This Project

Our development can be divided into two parts. First, we will introduce the details of our algorithm. Second, we will talk about the design and the functions of our APP, HotSource, and how the end user can use HotSource to be aware of heat waves beforehand.

Heat Waves Risk Algorithm

According to the Heat Index developed by NOAA, as shown in Picture 1, when the temperature reaches over 80 °F(26.7 °C) and the humidity reaches over 40%, the Heat Risk was calculated using the heat index equation: 

Heat Index (HI) 

 = c1 + c2T + c3R + c4TR + c5T2 + c6R2 + c7T2R + c8TR2 + c9T2R2

Based on the output value, the risk index marked in the APP was also classified into four colors, yellow, saffron, orange, and red. The four colors indicated different risk levels. 

Picture 1 Heat Index

Probability of Heat Waves Calculation Algorithm

The definition of the heat waves is when the daily maximum temperature of more than five consecutive days exceeds the monthly average temperature. Hence, our algorithm is to observe consecutive days that their temperatures all exceed the highest temperature recorded during the current month, in order to estimate the value of the probability of heat waves. The chart of the probability is shown in Table 1.

APP Functions and User Interface 

 From the home page, a map is shown and users can drag the map and pin on specific locations or they can simply search for locations they want to know for its weather information. There are tabs below where users can switch to another page.

In the information page, we show the temperature of today and heat waves probability. On the bottom of this page, our APP also gives users suggestions to take precautions to ease the damage of heat waves according to users’ locations.

Language

Python

Dart

Development Environment(DE) 

Visual Studio Code

Project Demo

Video Demo: https://youtu.be/nbjXUcRp6Uo

Slide Demo: Space Apps Challenge 2021-HotSource| We're So Hot - presentation

Project Source:

• Server: https://github.com/sodiffi/hot_source_server
• APP: https://github.com/sodiffi/hot_Source_app

Aqua/AIRS L3 Daily Standard Physical Retrieval (AIRS-only) 1 degree x 1 degree V7.0 (AIRS3STD)

https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/AIRS3STD_7.0/summary

Temperature and humidity from this dataset was used to calculate the heat index value.

For some of us, this was our first time enrolling in Hackthon Competitions. It was a really new and unforgettable experience in our lives(it could be one of our teammates' worst nightmare though). Each of us all tried our best to complete what we were assigned to do. In these last two days, we gathered in coffee shop together to brainstorm the ideas we wished to develop in our application. Even though the result might not satisfy our original concepts, we think that we all have learned how to collaborate with each other.

In the project we worked on, it made us realize that environmental protection should and must come in the first place for human beings and this one and only planet we live on.

Finally, just like we mentioned in our video demo, save Earth, save life.

Daily Temperature of Major Cities

https://www.kaggle.com/sudalairajkumar/daily-temperature-of-major-cities

World Cities Location

https://gist.github.com/dannymorris/d28665a8b5e58f7eb6d8e065e04b1231#file-worldcities-csv

Heat Index Equation 

https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/heatindex_equation.shtml

https://www.toppr.com/guides/physics-formulas/heat-index-formula/

Background study of heat waves damage

https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/weather-related-disasters-increase-over-past-50-years-causing-more-damage-fewer

#heat_waves, #heatwaves, #heatwave, #global_warming, #water_capacity, #drought, #water_shortage, #climate_change, #temperature, #humidity, #forest_fire, #wildfire, #crop_demage, #plant_cover, #vegetation_cover, #heatwaves_detection, #heatwaves_prediction, #heatwaves_precaution

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.