Development of an Online Heat Index Measurement System for Thermal Comfort Determination

Abstract

Changing thermal comfort over southern India under warming environment: an analysis of heat index. In the present study, trends in Heat Index were analyzed to assess heat stress conditions at 41 urban stations of southern peninsular India during monsoon season months (June to September) for the period 1969-2014. Results indicated that, with the exception of insignificant decrease at few stations, almost all stations registered significant increase in heat stress. Change point detection depicted that, increase in heat stress initiated in late 1990's and early years of the decade of 2000 at most of the urban stations. Hierarchical cluster analysis partitioned data in seven spatial units. Accordingly highest magnitude of increase was observed over cities located in northeast part of the study area, followed by cities located at southern tip of peninsular India. The study demands attention on precarious health risks inscriptive to increasing heat stress casualties and developing indigenous thermal stress alerts during persistent climate extremes.

Study on the Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Thermal Comfort and Its Influencing Factors in Urban Parks

“…While WBGT performed best for minimal activities of daily living and light walking, the HI was equally accurate in predicting compensatory heat stress under MinAct conditions. The HI is significantly correlated with subjects' perception of temperature and humidity, as well as their body core temperature, linking the perception of the surrounding environment to physiological responses under MinAct conditions [15], and is also suitable for assessing the thermal comfort of a particular building or a particular area [25]. The heat index is calculated as follows:…”

“…In parks, the heat index and wet-bulb globe temperature are important evaluation bases for thermal comfort [24,25]. Due to the unstable nature of the park environment, the correlation between the heat index and wet-bulb globe temperature was discussed using average rather than instantaneous data as far as possible [33].…”