Climate Warming at European Airports: Human Factors and Infrastructure Planning

Temperature and related thermal comfort metrics at a representative 9-member ensemble of airports in Europe are presented using a combination of historical (1985–2014) and future projection (2035–2064) timescales under a variety of forcing scenarios. Data are shown for summer (June–July–August) and the nine sites are further grouped into ‘oceanic’, ‘continentally influenced’, and ‘Mediterranean coastal’ climate types, which ameliorates visualisation and provides more generalised policy-relevant results. Using the Humidex metric, it is shown that some airports in southern Europe may enter a ‘dangerous’ (>45 °C) regime of human discomfort. This would be accompanied by economic impacts related to longer mandated rest periods for ground workers, as well as increased water intake and changes to health and safety training. The coincidence of the 38 °C flash point of kerosene jet fuel with perturbed daily maximum temperature occurrence thresholds at some sites will likely also have knock-on effects on safety practices since some sites may experience 70% of future summer days with temperatures exceeding this value. Using an 18 °C threshold for defining cooling and heating ‘degree days’, increases in cooling requirements are projected to be larger than reductions in heating for continental and Mediterranean sites, and heatwave occurrence (3 or more days at or above the 95th historical percentile) may increase by a factor of 10. From a building and infrastructure services perspective, increased temperature variability around larger average values has the potential to reduce safe runway lifetimes and increase structural fatigue in large-span steel terminal buildings.