The influence of air temperature and humidity on human thermal comfort over the greater Athens area

• Published in: Sustainable cities and society 2014-02, Vol.10, p.184-194
• Main Authors: Giannopoulou, K., Livada, I., Santamouris, M., Saliari, M., Assimakopoulos, M., Caouris, Y.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air temperature; Relative humidity; Thermal comfort
• ISSN: 2210-6707; 2210-6715
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scs.2013.09.004

•We collected meteorological data from 26 fixed stations placed in Athens.•We examined the thermal comfort in five geographical zones.•Highest air temperature values are observed in the western and southern section.•Highest relative humidity is observed in June–July in the southern section.•Daily evolution of relative humidity is opposite to that of air temperature. Meteorological data collected from 26 fixed stations placed in the greater Athens area, have been used to investigate the human thermal comfort during the period of June–August of 2009. The two main parameters used in this analysis are the air temperature and the relative humidity. The city has been divided in five geographical zones (center of the city, northern, eastern, southern and western section) presenting different thermal balances, showing that the five areas of this analysis had definitely different temperature and discomfort conditions. The highest air temperature values were observed in the western section of the Greater area of Athens and the western parts of the southern section, while the lowest ones were detected in the northern section and the northern parts of the eastern section. The highest relative humidity values were observed in June and July in the southern section, while in August higher values occurred in the city's center. In this study, statistical methods have been used to calculate the distribution of Humidex (H) values, the spatial distribution of the probabilities of discomfort conditions (H>30 and H>40) and the persistence of hours with great or more discomfort conditions.