Modeling the dynamics of comfort thermal conditions in Arctic cities under regional climate change

Abstract

This work is devoted to modeling of characteristics of comfort thermal conditions in some Arctic cities under climate change. In this paper, the authors try to solve the problem of scarce meteorological observing stations in the cities by modeling thermal comfort indices in the Arctic urban landscape. For this, seven Arctic cities are classified according to a universally accepted classification of local climatic zones (LCZs) to identify the zones that best characterize each of the cities. Building data and data from the weather stations closest to the cities are included in a diagnostic microclimatic model RayMan. As a result of the experiments, air temperature trends and bioclimatic environmental comfort indices for the Arctic cities from 1966 to 2017 have been obtained. An assessment of the evolution of the indices has shown that the transitional seasons (April-May and October-November) make the greatest contribution to the change in comfort of the Arctic cities, and the number of days with severe cold stress decreases in all these cities of the Russian Arctic.