EmCliC – Embodying Climate Change: Transdisciplinary Research on Urban Overheating

 

Climate crisis is one of the leading global threats, if not the main threat we are currently facing. For the wider public, however, climate science is often abstract and difficult to understand. In order to make climate change less abstract, this research project aims to humanize climate science. We will connect the abstract, global and seemingly disconnected natural occurrences with people’s local knowledges and embodied experiences.  We aim to understand people’s everyday experiences of climate change and to explore climate change as both an environmental and social phenomenon.

In order to do this, the project takes a transdisciplinary approach, which means it converges various analytical perspectives and research methods. Team members come from a diverse set of disciplines, including physics, sociology, economy, environmental and climate science, and social anthropology.

The project focuses on the case of urban overheating. One of the main concerns of climate change is the rise in temperatures. Hotter, longer and more frequent heatwaves affect populations everywhere around the globe. Heat stress is exacerbated in cities by the Urban Heat Island effect. Thus, due to climate change, city dwellers are exposed to higher temperatures.  The project will focus on studying the experiences of urban heat among elderly populations in Warsaw and Madrid.

https://www.emclic.com/

 

Duration

2020 - 2023

Source of funding

The research project is funded from the Norway and EEA grants 2014–2021 under the Basic Research Programme operated by the Polish National Science Centre in cooperation with the Research Council of Norway (grant no 2019/35/J/HS6/03992).

Partners

  1. Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
  2. Uniwersytet Warszawski
  3. Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norwegia
  4. Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, Norwegia

Publications