5:15 PM - 6:45 PM
[MIS01-P20] Evaluation of thermal comfort conditions in Northern Eurasia at the end of the XXI century
Keywords:thermal comfort, Northern Eurasia, climate modelling, PET, UTCI
The evaluation of future impact of the warming climate on human health remains one of the most important tasks linked to the development of mitigation and adaptation strategies to climate change, and complex biometeorological indices, which are calculated from the number of parameters, including air temperature, humidity, cloud cover, and wind speed are one of the best tools for this analysis. In Northern Eurasia, the area limited by the coordinates of 40–80 N and 10 W–170 W, the severity of potential consequences of changes in thermal comfort conditions by the end of the century may be magnified by the highest rates of the warming observed in the Russian Arctic and concentration of population on the territories of Europe and China.
The assessment of future thermal comfort conditions requires data with sub-daily temporal resolution because the variables necessary to calculate the most advanced thermal comfort indices include height of the sun in the location. Such data for the 2050-2100 period in Northern Eurasia may be obtained from several global climate models (GCMs) which participate in CMIP6 project and have simulations with 3-hour temporal resolution available. The evaluation was based on six variables from the selected models: cloud area fraction (clt), specific humidity (huss), surface air pressure (ps), near-surface air temperature (tas), eastward (uas) and northward (vas) wind components. For better comparability, the obtained data for each variable was interpolated on standard 1 latitude x 1 longitude grid.
Two thermal comfort indices were used for the evaluation: Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) and Universal Thermal Comfort Index (UTCI), which are based on human energy balance models and provide accurate assessment of human thermal perception, as well as threshold criteria for heat and cold stress conditions. Calculations of thermal comfort indices for Northern Eurasia were performed using the RayMan software, as well as some tools of Python programming language for format conversions, since RayMan does not support the processing of gridded datasets, which should be converted to text tables and vice versa for results.
Future changes of thermal comfort conditions in Northern Eurasia were evaluated for two of the standard ScenarioMIP scenarios: SSP 2.4.5, which represents the medium pathway of greenhouse gas emissions, and SSP 5.8.5, which describes the upper boundary of the possible climate change range. The frequencies of occurrence of different grades of cold and heat stress, thermal comfort conditions were calculated for all grid cells (1 x 1 resolution) within study area for each decade in 2050–2100 interval, and then compared to similar data of CMIP6 historical experiment. The comparisons were also made between changes during the whole year, summer and winter seasons. The frequency of occurrence of “stress-free” days for study area was calculated as well.
Spatial distributions of differences of these parameters from the historical experiment according to two different scenarios were also described, marking the patterns of these changes of the territory of the Northern Eurasia.
The assessment of future thermal comfort conditions requires data with sub-daily temporal resolution because the variables necessary to calculate the most advanced thermal comfort indices include height of the sun in the location. Such data for the 2050-2100 period in Northern Eurasia may be obtained from several global climate models (GCMs) which participate in CMIP6 project and have simulations with 3-hour temporal resolution available. The evaluation was based on six variables from the selected models: cloud area fraction (clt), specific humidity (huss), surface air pressure (ps), near-surface air temperature (tas), eastward (uas) and northward (vas) wind components. For better comparability, the obtained data for each variable was interpolated on standard 1 latitude x 1 longitude grid.
Two thermal comfort indices were used for the evaluation: Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) and Universal Thermal Comfort Index (UTCI), which are based on human energy balance models and provide accurate assessment of human thermal perception, as well as threshold criteria for heat and cold stress conditions. Calculations of thermal comfort indices for Northern Eurasia were performed using the RayMan software, as well as some tools of Python programming language for format conversions, since RayMan does not support the processing of gridded datasets, which should be converted to text tables and vice versa for results.
Future changes of thermal comfort conditions in Northern Eurasia were evaluated for two of the standard ScenarioMIP scenarios: SSP 2.4.5, which represents the medium pathway of greenhouse gas emissions, and SSP 5.8.5, which describes the upper boundary of the possible climate change range. The frequencies of occurrence of different grades of cold and heat stress, thermal comfort conditions were calculated for all grid cells (1 x 1 resolution) within study area for each decade in 2050–2100 interval, and then compared to similar data of CMIP6 historical experiment. The comparisons were also made between changes during the whole year, summer and winter seasons. The frequency of occurrence of “stress-free” days for study area was calculated as well.
Spatial distributions of differences of these parameters from the historical experiment according to two different scenarios were also described, marking the patterns of these changes of the territory of the Northern Eurasia.