HEAT

Hybrid dry–hot Extremes prediction and AdapTation

Half a million people die due to heat stress every year. These numbers keep rising as climate continues to change. Heatwaves are becoming more frequent and severe, and disproportionally synchronised with droughts. Droughts reduce the ability of the land surface to cool down via evaporation, further enhancing heatwave temperatures. Nonetheless, how these compound drought–heatwave events spatially propagate, and their future lethality, remains unclear. Counterintuitive findings now indicate that drought can even dampen heatwave deadliness by reducing air humidity.

Consequently, our ability to forecast dry–hot events and their impacts on human health remains limited. Sub-seasonal timescales, between two weeks and two months, have traditionally been a blind spot: conventional weather forecast models are not tailored to these scales. However, the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) may hold the key to fill this gap and reliably predict the upcoming occurrence of heat stress episodes weeks in advance. This would bring enormous societal benefits by enabling emergency planning.

In this project, we will explore an innovative way to generate sub-seasonal forecasts of droughts and heatwaves, and their consequent human heat stress episodes. A 'hybrid' approach will be embraced, i.e., an approach based on physics-based models combined with AI algorithms. Building upon this approach, we will deepen our understanding of the climatic drivers of human heat stress, and explore the future benefits of land-based adaptation practices designed to attenuate these events, including afforestation, crop selection, and large-scale irrigation.

Altogether, HEAT will foster our preparedness and resilience to future heat stress episodes – by improving their prediction, investigating the mechanisms that trigger them globally, and providing realistic and effective land-adaptation strategies to mitigate them – while heralding the adoption of hybrid approaches in climate science.

Project ID

101088405

Funding period

1 May 2023 - 30 April 2028

Total budget

€1,983,000.00

EU contribution

€1,983,000.00

Funding programme

Horizon Europe

Call for proposals

ERC-2022-COG

Type of action

HORIZON-ERC

Type of stakeholder

Not specified

Project contribution to Mission Soil’s:

Specific objectives

  • 1. Reduce land degradation relating to desertification
    Not targeted
  • 2. Conserve and increase soil organic carbon stocks
    Not targeted
  • 3. No net soil sealing and increase the reuse of urban soils
    Not targeted
  • 4. Reduce soil pollution and enhance restoration
    Not targeted
  • 5. Prevent erosion
    Not targeted
  • 6. Improve soil structure to enhance habitat quality for soil biota and crops
    Partially targeted
  • 7. Reduce the EU global footprint on soils
    Not targeted
  • 8. Increase soil literacy in society across Member States
    Not targeted

Operational objectives

  • 1. Build capacities and the knowledge base for soil stewardship
    Not targeted
  • 2. Co-create and upscale place-based innovations to improve soil health in all places
    Partially targeted
  • 3. Develop an integrated EU soil monitoring system and track progress towards soil health
    Not targeted
  • 4. Engage with the soil user community and society at large
    Partially targeted

Innovation hotspots

  • 1. Carbon farming
    Not targeted
  • 2. Soil pollution and restoration
    Not targeted
  • 3. Soil biodiversity including the microbiome
    Targeted
  • 4. Circular economy solutions
    Not targeted

Cross-cutting dimensions

  • 1. Business
    Not targeted
  • 2. Digital
    Partially targeted
  • 3. Territorial
    Not targeted
  • 4. International
    Not targeted

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