Current and future outdoor thermal comfort in Asia

Ongoing global warming causes increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as heat waves, which will only intensify over time. This will impact our future perceived thermal conditions, but to which extent? Our perceived thermal comfort is not only depending on air temperature but also on wind speed/ventilation, humidity, solar and thermal radiation. Next to these meteorological variables there are also personal factors that play a role, i.e. activity, clothing insulation, age, weight, adaptation to the prevailing climate and psychological factors. By keeping these personal factors constant over time, the change in outdoor thermal comfort under the 1.5 °C, 2 °C and 3 °C global warming scenarios has been studied to investigate how the changing climate will affect the outdoor living conditions in Asia.Hourly data of the regional climate model ALARO-0 was used to compute the current and future Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) to express the outdoor thermal comfort conditions of 40 Asian locations. Currently, citizens of New Delhi, Abu Dhabi and Doha already experience warm conditions (UTCI > 23 °C) more than 50% of the time when outdoors and outdoor locations near Doha and Kuwait City undergo extreme heat stress (UTCI > 41 °C) 9% of the time. However, the largest future outdoor thermal comfort changes were found for the high latitude locations e.g. Novy Urengoy (Russia) with a remarkable reduction in cold stress. For all locations it was found that higher global warming leads towards larger changes in outdoor thermal comfort conditions.Due to the shift towards warmer conditions for all 40 locations, human health heat thresholds will be exceeded more frequently, leading to reduced wellbeing. To overcome the increase of deadly heat stress, the emission of greenhouse gasses should be reduced and adaptation strategies such as green infrastructure and warning systems should be developed and implemented.Ongoing global warming causes increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as heat waves, which will only intensify over time. This will impact our future perceived thermal conditions, but to which extent? Our perceived thermal comfort is not only depending on air temperature but also on wind speed/ventilation, humidity, solar and thermal radiation. Next to these meteorological variables there are also personal factors that play a role, i.e. activity, clothing insulation, age, weight, adaptation to the prevailing climate and psychological factors. By keeping these personal factors constant over time, the change in outdoor thermal comfort under the 1.5 °C, 2 °C and 3 °C global warming scenarios has been studied to investigate how the changing climate will affect the outdoor living conditions in Asia.Hourly data of the regional climate model ALARO-0 was used to compute the current and future Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) to express the outdoor thermal comfort conditions of 40 Asian locations. Currently, citizens of New Delhi, Abu Dhabi and Doha already experience warm conditions (UTCI > 23 °C) more than 50% of the time when outdoors and outdoor locations near Doha and Kuwait City undergo extreme heat stress (UTCI > 41 °C) 9% of the time. However, the largest future outdoor thermal comfort changes were found for the high latitude locations e.g. Novy Urengoy (Russia) with a remarkable reduction in cold stress. For all locations it was found that higher global warming leads towards larger changes in outdoor thermal comfort conditions.Due to the shift towards warmer conditions for all 40 locations, human health heat thresholds will be exceeded more frequently, leading to reduced wellbeing. To overcome the increase of deadly heat stress, the emission of greenhouse gasses should be reduced and adaptation strategies such as green infrastructure and warning systems should be developed and implemented.C