Human outdoor thermal comfort analysis for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup’s climate

Abstract

Abstract It is explored, in this work; some well-known classic methods to calculate thermal comfort, contrasting them with a method proposed here that is based on the Principal Components Analysis for the Doha Metropolitan Region (DohaMR) in Qatar. The Principal Components Analysis takes into account the natural outdoor space, which is influenced by the external atmosphere variables. The purpose of the comfort index is to measure the atmospheric variability and the result shows whether thermal comfort increases or decreases from one month to the next or seasonally. Considering the predominant climate characteristics of Qatar, it was possible to identify that among classical and canonical urban thermal comfort indices investigated, the Principal Components Index provides convenient evidence to be also appropriate. The overall vision of the final results of the study is related to the equivalence between the classical climate-dependent thermal comfort indices and the proposal of a self-explanatory index by the linear combination of the atmospheric variables, which captures the greatest joint variability, without a pre-defined equation, but rather by an empirical equation. The observed atmospheric variables determine, locally, the thermal comfort experienced by humans. The main conclusion of this research is the simplicity, and equiprobability, of calculating thermal comfort using the characteristic history of the atmospheric variables that can be used. Based on the principle of Principal Components construction, which captures the largest source of variability through an empirical linear combination.

Keywords

• Thermal discomfort index (TDI)
• Standard temperature and humidity index (THI)
• Effective temperature index (ETI)
• Effective temperature as a function of wind index (ETWI)
• Principal component thermal comfort index (PCTCI)