Reconstruction of historical temperature and relative humidity cycles within Knole House, Kent

Abstract

It is essential for the preservation of cultural heritage that the effects of climate change are investigated. With this in mind, the daily temperature and relative humidity (RH) cycles within the Brown Gallery at Knole House, Kent, have been reconstructed for the period 1605 -2015 enabling the study of low-cycle environmental fatigue on a set of 17 th century panel paintings. By establishing a relationship between the temperature in the Brown Gallery and the Hadley Centre Central England Temperature (HadCET) dataset over a sixteen year period (2000 -2015), it is possible to use the full HadCET dataset to obtain the daily minimum and maximum temperatures in the Brown Gallery for the period 1878 -2015. Using a Fourier series to fit the periodic data it is then possible to extrapolate back to 1605. Furthermore, correction factors derived using the HadCET average daily temperature in the period 1772 -1877 and average monthly temperature in the period 1659 -1771 are applied to the temperature data to increase the model accuracy. The daily minimum and maximum RH for the period 1605 -2015 are obtained using the Brown Gallery maximum and minimum temperatures respectively, and assuming that the daily dew point temperature at Knole is calculated by subtracting a monthly-dependent constant from the daily minimum temperature at Knole, thus enabling the calculation of the daily actual water vapour pressure of air. Changes in RH are a result of the daily temperature cycle changing the saturation vapour pressure of air in the gallery. This data is valuable as it enables a study of the effects of low-cycle fatigue on the 17 th century panel paintings housed in the Brown Gallery at Knole House, Kent due to these temperature and relative humidity cycles. Furthermore, the method presented offers a technique that can be utilised to replicate the internal environment for any unheated monument building so that the effects of past and future temperature and humidity cycles on cultural heritage can be examined.

Distribution and Potential Sources of Surface Aerosol Particles in the Yangtze River Delta Region, China

“…Since relative humidity (RH) data were absent, we adopted an alternative method to obtain the relative humidity. Following the reference, [ 16 ] we calculated RH (%) using $$$$\begin{equation} {\rm{RH}} = {{\rm{e}}^{\left( {\frac{{17.27{{\rm{T}}_{{\rm{dew}}}}}}{{{{\rm{T}}_{{\rm{dew}}}} + 237.3}} - \frac{{17.27{\rm{T}}}}{{{\rm{T}} + 237.3}}} \right)}} \times 100 \end{equation}$$$$where T (°C) is the air temperature and T dew (°C) is the dew point temperature.…”

“…[15] Since relative humidity (RH) data were absent, we adopted an alternative method to obtain the relative humidity. Following the reference, [16] we calculated RH (%) using RH = e where T (°C) is the air temperature and T dew (°C) is the dew point temperature.…”

Climate Change and Its Effects on Indoor Pests (Insect and Fungi) in Museums

“…The need for knowledge in this area has initiated various European research projects, such as Noah's Ark [22], Engineering Historic Futures [23], Climate Change and the Historic Environment [24], and Climate for Culture [25][26][27]. Recent studies by Camuffo et al [28][29][30][31][32][33] and other authors [34][35][36][37] are of particular relevance because of their focus on the indoor environment within historic buildings, both in European and national contexts. They use simple outdoor-indoor transfer functions or complex building simulations requiring an input of data on building physics and material properties (ASHRAE, EnergyPlus, or HAMBase/WUFI simulations) to predict interior conditions from the outdoor climate.…”

A Numerical Model for Predicting the Time for Crack Initiation in Wood Panel Paintings Under Low-Cycle Environmentally Induced Fatigue

“…These paintings gave a very interesting case study for investigating the effect of changing environment on crack initiation and propagation in the paint layers. This is because the environmental history (since 1600s) of the display and storage conditions has already been reconstructed for the period 1605 -2015 for this research by Wood et al [18] . This was achieved by establishing a relationship between the temperature in the Brown Gallery and the Hadley Centre Central England Temperature dataset.…”

“…The research presented here aims, for the first time, to identify the effect of the magnitude and frequency of RH fluctuation on the initiation and propagation of both channelling and interfacial cracks in the panel paintings at Knole House. Finite element models are employed to simulate the environmentally induced fatigue, using RH data which were measured and extrapolated at the Brown Gallery, Knole House (National Trust), England [18] . These paintings gave a very interesting case study for investigating the effect of changing environment on crack initiation and propagation in the paint layers.…”