On the combined impact of local, regional, and global climatic changes on the urban energy performance and indoor thermal comfort—The energy potential of adaptation measures

Abstract

The rapidly growing urban population, along with the increasing urban energy needs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, poses a serious threat to the global climate. Local, regional, and global climatic conditions synergistically interact and affect urban energy performance and thermal comfort. The combined impact of such local, regional and global climatic change on the buildings' thermal performance has never been studied. In the present study, the combined impact of urban overheating (UO) and heatwaves (HWs) on building thermal performance have been investigated by employing the urban building energy model (UBEM). Further, the sensitivity analyses were performed using various adaptive measures to evaluate the impact on cooling needs and indoor comfort. Under the synergistic impact of UO and HWs, the cooling penalties were recorded up to 650%, the increase in mean indoor temperature was up to 5.8 °C, and the deterioration in passive survivability was registered up to 31%. Under the combined impact of various adaptive measures, the cooling savings were recorded up to 97%, the drop in mean indoor temperature was up to 2.34 °C, and the improvement in passive survivability was up to 20% during HWs. The present study might assist in revising the building codes to counteract the global climatic change and improve building resilience during extreme heat conditions.