Implementation of human thermal comfort information in Köppen-Geiger climate classification—the example of China

• Published in: International journal of biometeorology Vol. 60; no. 11; pp. 1801 - 1805
• Main Authors: Yang, Shi-Qi, Matzarakis, Andreas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.11.2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animal Physiology; Biological and Medical Physics; Biometeorology; Biophysics; China; Cities; Climate; Climate effects; Earth and Environmental Science; Energy consumption; Environment; Environmental Health; Humans; Humidity; Meteorology; Models, Theoretical; Plant Physiology; Short Communication; Temperature; Thermal comfort; Thermosensing; Urban planning; Vapor Pressure; Vegetation; Vegetation effects; Vapour pressure; Air humidity; Human thermal comfort; China; Köppen-Geiger climate classification; Physiologically equivalent temperature
• ISSN: 0020-7128; 1432-1254
• DOI: 10.1007/s00484-016-1155-6

Köppen-Geiger climate classification (KGC) is accepted and applied worldwide. The climatic parameters utilised in KGC, however, cannot indicate human thermal comfort (HTC) conditions or air humidity (AH) conditions directly, because they are originally based on climatic effects on vegetation, instead of that on human body directly. In addition, HTC is driven by meteorological parameters together. Thus, the objective of this study is to preliminarily implement the HTC information and the AH information in KGC. Physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) has been chosen as the HTC index, and vapour pressure (VP) is for the quantification of AH conditions. In this preliminary study, 12 Chinese cities in total have been taken into account as the assumed representatives of 11 climate types. Basic meteorological data of each city with 3-h resolution in 2000–2012 has been analysed. RayMan model has been applied to calculate PET within the same time period. Each climate type has been described by frequencies of PET and frequencies of VP. For example, the Aw (Sanya) has the most frequent occurrence of thermally stressful conditions compared to other climate types: PET in 22 % points in time of the year was above 35 °C. The driest AH conditions existed in Dwc (Lhasa) and Dfb (Urumqi) with VP rarely above 18 hPa in the wettest month. Implementation of the HTC information and the additional AH information in each climate type of KGC can be helpful for the topics of human health, energy consumption, tourism, as well as urban planning.