The impact of human-biometeorological factors on perceived thermal comfort in urban public places

• Main Authors: Isabell Maras, Teresa Schmidt, Bastian Paas, Martina Ziefle, Christoph Schneider
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Borntraeger 2016-09-01
• Series: Meteorologische Zeitschrift
• Subjects: thermal stress; urban public spaces; urban climate; field study; psychophysics measurements; thermal comfort
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1127/metz/2016/0705

For the understanding of the impact of meteorological stressors on human perceptions of thermal comfort, it is essential to examine in detail the joint variability of atmospheric conditions and human perception. We designed an interdisciplinary experimental setup to generate data of both human-biometeorological and individual human perception at two different urban public places in the city of Aachen, Germany. Meteorological measurements at the human-biometeorological standard height of 1.1 m a.g.l. were taken during typical winter weather situations as well as extreme summer weather situations to analyze potentially seasonal effects. Pedestrians and tourists at the study site were selected as participants for face-to-face questionnaire-based interviews. We took measurements and held interviews between 10:00 h and 17:00 h (CEST/CET) to record the daytime agreement/deviations at different inner urban measurement locations. Based on an overall physical approach of thermal load, UTCI (Universal Thermal Climate Index) values are calculated. A maximum of +34.1 °C for summertime and a minimum of +2.6 °C for wintertime could be found. The meteorological parameters of air temperature (Ta$T_{a}$), mean radiant temperature (Tmrt$T_{\text{mrt}}$) and vapor pressure (VP) are compared with data perceived by the persons interviewed. In winter, Ta$T_{a }$ shows a significant relation to the overall weather perception (r=0.28$r = 0.28$; p<0.05$p<0.05$) while the overall comfort of the participants is significantly related to perceived solar heat (r=0.27$r = 0.27$; p<0.5$p<0.5$) as well as to perceived Ta$T_{a}$ (r=0.4$r = 0.4$; p<0.002$p<0.002$). Quite different resulting patterns occurred for the summer campaign. None of the physical variables significantly affected the weather perception. Only the perceived Ta$T_{a}$ revealed a significant relation to the overall weather perception (r=0.27$r=0.27$; p<0.002$p<0.002$).