Apologies for cross posting...
Call for papers for the Association of American Geographers (AAG), Annual Meeting, March 29 - April 2, 2016, San Francisco
Special paper session: Climate, Weather and Mobility
Organizers: Lars Böcker (University of Oslo), Tanu Priya Uteng (Institute of Transport Economics, Norway) and Chengxi Liu (Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden)
Intuitively, weather plays an important role in everyday mobility. How often and how long do we not expose ourselves to cold, heat, sun, rain, snow or wind on our journeys to work, friends, shops, or leisure destinations? For example when cycling to a train station, waiting at a bus stop, walking to a parked car, sunbathing on a beach, queuing in a rainy morning traffic jam, or driving under slippery road conditions.
In light of climate change, weather and climate have emerged as important themes for policy makers and urban planners. The higher frequencies and intensities of heat waves, excessive urban heat, drought, storms, flooding or other weather extremes have attracted particular attention. Yet, it remains equally vital to assess the impacts of the gradual changes in normal everyday weather conditions, as consequent behavioral changes (e.g. in transport mode choice and activity participation) may lead to considerable changes in social welfare and external effects (traffic safety, transport emissions, public health, etc.) in a warmer and potentially more extreme future climate. With demographic change, urban microclimates, health, accessibility, livability and subsequent aims to reduce car mobility and promote low-energy, healthy (but often weather-exposed) transport modes and physical activities high on the agenda, climate adaptation and mitigation policies are increasingly interlinked.
Yet although the influence of weather on daily life has been pervasive and its societal relevance never more pronounced, current scientific debate on how weather and climate shape mobility requires further research to complete the areas that are under-investigated and provide additional empirical evidence to support policy-making. Despite many valuable insights over the last couple of years, including at AAG special sessions and in resulting special issues, there remains a particular need for uniting insights from different disciplines and across geographical, cultural and social contexts. We thus seek to organize sessions that address the role of climate and weather in mobility in its broadest sense, including contributions from scholars in meteorology, geography, spatial planning, economics, social anthropology, sociology, psychology, political, health or other relevant sciences, both from the Global North and South. We welcome submissions that examine topics including but not limited to:
- Theoretical, conceptual and methodological issues in studying weather
- Weather and transport modes, destinations and (physical) activity patterns
- Weather, travel distance and travel time (variability)
- Weather and traffic safety
- Impacts of weather on consumer and shopping behaviors
- Role of climate, weather and seasonality for tourism and leisure
- Effects of weather in urban and rural areas
- Weather and everyday life in the arctic or the (sub)tropics
- Local knowledge, meaning and conceptualizations of weather and climate change
- The meaning of work place, home and garden under various weather conditions
- Impacts of climate and weather on physical, communicative, virtual and imaginative (I'm)mobilities
- Weather and climate forecasting
- Subjective thermal comfort
- Climate, weather and embodiment
- Weather, moods and emotions
- Weather perception and place perception
- Weather and satisfaction with travel
- Cultural and ethnic differences in experiencing weather and climate
- Weather and physical / mental health
- Climate, weather and gender
- Climate, weather and ageing
- Weather effects on transport energy use
- Climate, weather and low-energy mobility transitions
- Transport governance issues related to climate and weather
- Policies related to urban microclimates
Please submit a title and abstract of maximum 250 words to Lars Böcker ([log in to unmask]), Tanu Priya Uteng ([log in to unmask]) and Chengxi Liu ([log in to unmask]) by October 16, 2015. Successful applicants will be contacted before October 23, 2015 and will be expected to pay and register online at the AAG website by October 29, 2015.
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