
Millions of people travel to European beaches making beach tourism the largest tourism sector. Understanding how person’s thermal comfort changes with projected climate change, which is paramount in deciding where and when to visit, can help the tourism sector mitigate risk and identify opportunities. Sustainable adaptation strategies for coastal tourism can be developed for different regional changes. This work calculates the Universal Thermal Comfort Index (UTCI), a comprehensive assessment of the human physiological response to the thermal environment, from an ensemble of regional climate models participating in EURO-CORDEX. Under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 8.5, the ensemble’s projections of the UTCI in the near- and far-future, compared to a historical reference period, show a robust and statistically significant increase across the entire EURO-CORDEX domain. Four popular beach regions in Germany, Italy, France, and Spain show the beach season can be extended - starting earlier and ending later each year. Across the Mediterranean, July and August exhibit, on average, 4 more days of ‘very strong’ heat stress and 1 day of ‘extreme’ heat stress at the end of the century. In accordance with FAIR data science principles, the UTCI calculation is available in the xclim open-source python library.
H1-99, Beach tourism, Climate, Thermal comfort, Social sciences (General), Blue flag, Meteorology. Climatology, UTCI, EURO-CORDEX, QC851-999
H1-99, Beach tourism, Climate, Thermal comfort, Social sciences (General), Blue flag, Meteorology. Climatology, UTCI, EURO-CORDEX, QC851-999
| selected citations These citations are derived from selected sources. This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 9 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% |
