How does extreme weather affect our behaviour?

The climate is changing. Researchers find it difficult to say exactly how much, when and how, but it is certain that we will all have to adapt to it. But how do we actually react when the climate suddenly changes, as we are already experiencing today?

We don't know much about this, but a new research project will, with support from Independent Research Fund Denmark, try to look at a central topic. Namely, how extreme weather affects how we move around and try to create knowledge that can be used in future climate scenarios.

»We want to empirically understand how people change their behaviour so that we can build statistical models that can give us insight into how we behave, so that we are ready to deal with the even more extreme climate changes of the future. In this way, we would like to try to give politicians data-driven methods to predict what will happen to our behaviour if the temperature rises by two, three or five degrees,« says Vedran Sekara, Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, who is leading the research, and adds:

»We want to find out how the extreme conditions affect different demographics. That is, mobility in relation to age, gender, whether you are rich or poor, or live in an urban or rural areas.«

Using anonymised GPS data from mobile phones

In order to be able to follow patterns in the movements of entire societies across the globe, the researchers will make use of anonymised and privacy preserving GPS information from mobile phones.

The GPS information is compared to weather data that is publicly available for the entire globe.

»We want to get a picture of how people behave normally. We would like to compare this with if there is a heat wave and it gets two, five or 10 degrees warmer. How does our behaviour change then?,« says Vedran Sekara.

»We don't expect it to be a linear change, but a little more complex behaviour. For example, if the temperature changes so that it becomes one degree warmer. The fact that it will be one degree warmer from 20 to 21 degrees may affect more people going to the beach. 

Whereas a change from 30 to 31 degrees might make people spend less time outside because it's getting too hot.«

Although the research meets all the rules to protect people's privacy, there are certain local restrictions that come into play. In Denmark, for example, the data protection rules are so strict that researchers find it difficult to obtain detailed data.

Instead, data from countries such as the United States, Italy and India are used. This also ensures that the researches can understand the cultural components of behaviour change, and test the generalisability of findings. 

The goal is to equip decision-makers

The research project is planned to extend over three and a half years. In addition to Vedran Sekara himself, a PhD student will be associated with the project, and the research will be conducted in collaboration with behavioural scientists from Copenhagen Business School (CBS) and Leuphana University in Germany.

In addition to the goal of equipping decision-makers, Vedran Sekara hopes that the research can be used to evaluate the attempts to change people's behaviour that have already taken place.

For example, in some places in the United States, people are asked to stay at home or schools are closed when the authorities assess that the weather will be too hot. The question is what the positive and negative sides of it are, and whether it makes people stay indoors at all.

»We want to give politicians some tools that they can use when it is time for next month to be 10 degrees warmer than usual. So they know how it affects our behaviour and how society will react,« Vedran Sekara concludes.