Outdoor thermal perception and comfort conditions in the Köppen-Geiger climate category BSk. One-year field survey and measurement campaign in Konya, Turkey.

This study presents an analysis of the thermo-hygrometric conditions in the city of Konya (Turkey). A one-year transversal field survey was carried out in the Selçuk University campus and 2295 valid questionnaires were collected. In each questionnaire, randomly selected interviewees provided personal information and judged their perception and thermal preference according to the ASHRAE 7-point and McIntyre scales, respectively. For each interviewee, a value of the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) was calculated based on the values of operational variables obtained from the questionnaires and the environmental variables measured during the survey. This allowed to calculate the seasonal preferred and neutral PETs and the annual PET comfort range. Also, the scale of the PET thermal perception was determined for the Konya population and, more generally, for the inhabitants of the BSk Köppen-Geiger climate zone. Statistical analyzes carried out in terms of Variance Inflationary Factor, multicollinearity assessment and Best Subsets Analysis led to the identification of the Turkish Outdoor Comfort Index, an empirical index able to predict the average value of the thermal perception of a large group of individuals living in the aforementioned climate zone. Moreover, the equations of the Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD) were obtained for each season.

On the outdoor thermal perception and comfort of a Mediterranean subject across other Koppen-Geiger's climate zones.

The climatic conditions characterizing the troposphere affect the outdoor activities of the population which, in turn, characterize the anthroposphere. Over the past years recent studies examined a possible analytical definition of the outdoor thermal comfort for different types of population acclimatized to their specific residency area. Thanks to the use of the MOCI (Mediterranean Outdoor Comfort Index: an index used to predict the thermal perception of the Mediterranean population in an outdoor environment), the present study aimed at analyzing the psychophysiological response of a Mediterranean subject with respect to climatic conditions different from the original ones after having experienced a quick change. Indeed, thermal stress and discomfort might affect deeply the ability of the subject to carry out outdoor activities. This condition determines the necessity of possessing useful information to plan the best period to perform a journey in distant places and/or perform useful actions that will make the outdoor activity as much comforting as possible (choosing the proper clothes with the right thermal insulation). For this reason, the worldwide environmental conditions during an average year were examined. To be more specific, this study focused its attention on the editing of seasonal spatial maps with the MOCI level curves and on the temporal analysis of the MOCI values characterizing those 6 different cities (one for each continent) reporting the higher number of foreign arrivals.

Implications of climate and outdoor thermal comfort on tourism: the case of Italy.

Whether a journey is pleasant or not usually depends on the climatic conditions which permit to perform outdoor activities. The perception of climatic conditions, determined by physiological and psychological factors, can vary according to different adaptation phenomena related to the person involved and the weather conditions of the place where they live. Studying the bioclimatology of a country characterized by a high flux of tourism, as e.g. Italy, can provide some important information about where and when is it better to visit a place. Some differences have to be specified though, like the local tourism, which is used to that type of climate, and international tourism, which is formed by people coming from countries with different types of climates. Therefore this paper examined the climatic conditions and outdoor thermal comfort through the Mediterranean Outdoor Comfort Index (MOCI) for local tourism and through the predicted mean vote (PMV) for international tourism. The cities examined were three (Venice, Rome and Palermo located in the North, Centre and South of Italy, respectively), where average information were collected every week for an entire year. Finally, a map of the entire Italian territory reporting the seasonal average values of these indexes was also reported.