Monitoring the Past and Future Trends of Urban Thermal Comfort Conditions Through a New Methodology

Abstract

Human thermal comfort representing the satisfaction of mind with ambient air conditions has significant effects on socioeconomic activities. Climate change is affecting thermal comfort conditions (TCCs) negatively. Therefore, it is important to estimate their past and future trends to take accurate measures for mitigation and adaptation efforts in especially urban areas. However, it is difficult to calculate TCCs for the future since they are the combined effect of several meteorological parameters on a person outdoor together with her/his own physiological characteristics, which must be evaluated individually. This study is aimed at determining the TCCs trends in the past compared to the present whilst estimating the future conditions using a new methodology in the case of Kayseri city in the Interior Anatolia Region of Turkey. As the result of the study, all the change trends considering temporal and spatial results show that thermal comfort conditions signal warmer and higher heat stress in the past and future trends. This means human thermal sensation ranges (e.g., very cold) have replaced with the next warmer range, and their spatial distribution in percentage has also changed towards warmer. Increase in the prevalence of unfavourable thermal comfort conditions causes the decrease in the liveability indicators in especially urban areas, including serious economic loses based on energy consumption, health care expenses, and efficiency of activities. It is required that both past and expected future trends be considered in the planning and design works to make cities resilient and have higher adaptive capacity to climate change.