Dr Nicole Miranda Publishes Research on the Dangers of Missing the 1.5°C Climate Target

Pembroke College Lecturer in Engineering, Dr Nicole Miranda, is the first author and co-lead of an important research paper with fellow Oxford academics titled ‘Change in cooling degree days with global mean temperature increasing from 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C’. In this paper, Oxford researchers predict the impact of rising temperatures on climate adaptation requirements for cooling on a country-by-country basis if climate targets are missed.

Dr Miranda explains: “Northern European countries will require large-scale adaptation to heat resilience quicker than other countries. The UK saw massive amounts of disruption in the record-breaking heatwaves of 2022 and an unplanned increase in air conditioning can pose risks on our energy grids and on further emissions and warming.”

Authors of the paper used the concept of ‘cooling degree days’ in their analysis, a method widely employed in research and weather forecasting to ascertain whether cooling would be needed on a particular day to keep populations comfortable. They modelled the world in 60km grids every six hours to produce the temperature averages in the study, a process that makes the results some of the most reliable globally.

More information can be found in the full research paper here.