Impacts of climate change on indoor thermal comfort in typical Swedish residential buildings - Assessing risks for human health
(2022) AEBM01 20221Division of Energy and Building Design
Department of Architecture and Built Environment
- Abstract
- There is strong evidence that climate change has a direct impact on humans and extreme temperatures have been linked to negative health impacts and increasing mortality. The heat wave of 2018 caused up to 8.2% more deaths compared to the year before in Sweden, with higher impacts in other parts of the world. The fact that people spent almost 90% of their times indoors makes the indoor environment susceptible to increase the effect of human temperature exposure. This master thesis assessed the effects of climate change on the indoor thermal comfort and further analyzed the impacts on human health due to temperature exposure. Projections of typical and extreme future climate conditions until the end of the 21st century were used to simulate... (More)
- There is strong evidence that climate change has a direct impact on humans and extreme temperatures have been linked to negative health impacts and increasing mortality. The heat wave of 2018 caused up to 8.2% more deaths compared to the year before in Sweden, with higher impacts in other parts of the world. The fact that people spent almost 90% of their times indoors makes the indoor environment susceptible to increase the effect of human temperature exposure. This master thesis assessed the effects of climate change on the indoor thermal comfort and further analyzed the impacts on human health due to temperature exposure. Projections of typical and extreme future climate conditions until the end of the 21st century were used to simulate the indoor temperatures and heating demand of three different constructions of the same building type; original building, retrofit and new design. The indoor temperatures and heating demand were simulated with IDA ICE using future climate projections for three different locations in Sweden; Malmö, Stockholm and Umeå. The health impact assessment was projected with the use of temperature-related morbidity and mortality calculations, with the variation of two different human age groups. Results showed, that the implementation of energy efficient measures for the retrofit and new designed building reduce the heating demand with up to 62%. Simulations of the three constructions indicated highest number of overheating hours (hours over 26°C) in the original building and thermal comfort assessment showed that elderly (65+) experience on average 10% higher discomfort compared to young adults, if a 24h occupancy is considered. In contrast to the findings of the thermal comfort assessment, projection of the future morbidity and mortality indicated the highest risk for people living in the new designed building, where indoor temperature reach up to 34.4°C, with highest effects on elderly people. Future climate projections indicated that Malmö has the highest susceptibility for increased human health impacts compared to Stockholm and Umeå. (Less)
- Popular Abstract
- There is strong evidence that climate change has a direct impact on humans and extreme temperatures have been linked to negative human health impacts. The heat wave of 2018 caused in Sweden up to 8.2% more deaths compared to the year before. In Sweden, future climate projections estimate a temperature increase with up 3-5°C by the 2080’s, creating a greater risk for humans to be exposed to higher temperatures compared to the past climate. Further, energy efficient buildings can increase the indoor temperatures, mainly because of lower air exchange rate between indoors and outdoors, which is one method to minimize the heat losses through the building envelope. Because people spent almost 90% of their times indoors, the indoor environment is... (More)
- There is strong evidence that climate change has a direct impact on humans and extreme temperatures have been linked to negative human health impacts. The heat wave of 2018 caused in Sweden up to 8.2% more deaths compared to the year before. In Sweden, future climate projections estimate a temperature increase with up 3-5°C by the 2080’s, creating a greater risk for humans to be exposed to higher temperatures compared to the past climate. Further, energy efficient buildings can increase the indoor temperatures, mainly because of lower air exchange rate between indoors and outdoors, which is one method to minimize the heat losses through the building envelope. Because people spent almost 90% of their times indoors, the indoor environment is more susceptible to increase the health impacts on humans due to future indoor temperature exposure. This study analyzed the impacts of future climate on indoor thermal comfort and assessed how the human health is affected due to future indoor and outdoor temperature exposure. Future climate projections were used to simulate the indoor temperatures and energy demand of three different constructions of the same building type; original building, retrofit and new design. This was done for three different locations in Sweden; Malmö, Stockholm and Umeå. The effect on human health was estimated with the use of temperature-related morbidity and mortality calculations, with the variation of two different human age groups. Results showed that the implementation of energy efficient measures for the retrofit and new designed building reduces the heating demand with up to 60% compared to the original building. Projections of the indoor temperatures indicated the highest risk of overheating (hours over 26°C) in the original construction of the building, followed by the new design and lowest overheating risk in the retrofit building. Malmö, located in the south of Sweden, is more susceptible for overheating potential compared to Stockholm and Umeå. For all cases, elderly people are of higher risk to experience thermal discomfort indoors. Indoor comfort simulations showed that elderly experience on average 10-12% more discomfort hours compared to people aged 0-65 living in the three considered cities. Projections of the health impact due to temperature exposure of the future climate conditions showed likewise highest risk for elderly people with higher grade of risk in Malmö compared to Stockholm and Umeå. But in contrast to the findings of indoor comfort analysis, the health impact assessment due to indoor temperature exposure indicated highest risk for people living in the new designed building, where indoor temperature reaches up to 34.4°C. Although projections of indoor environment in the original building indicated higher numbers of overheating, the indoor temperature is higher in the new designed building, with more frequent occurring extremes. Results of this study showed that the future heating demand can be reduced with up to 60% under future climate projections and the implementation of energy efficient measures, following the Swedish national goal to reduce the carbon footprint of the building stock. However, results also showed that the transformation of the building stock can increase the human health impact due to temperature-exposure because of the implementation of energy-efficient measures in the new construction. Therefore, it is important to account for the impacts of climate change on humans and their health when constructing new buildings. The design should decrease the energy demand, without compromising the thermal comfort and thus increase the risk for humans. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9093481
- author
- Rumpca, Jessica LU
- supervisor
-
- Vahid Nik LU
- organization
- course
- AEBM01 20221
- year
- 2022
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Climate change, Swedish building stock, Indoor thermal comfort, Overheating risk, Health-impact assessment, Human temperature-exposure, Temperature-related morbidity and mortality, Human excess vulnerability
- language
- English
- id
- 9093481
- date added to LUP
- 2022-06-28 10:44:23
- date last changed
- 2022-06-28 10:44:23
@misc{9093481,
abstract = {{There is strong evidence that climate change has a direct impact on humans and extreme temperatures have been linked to negative health impacts and increasing mortality. The heat wave of 2018 caused up to 8.2% more deaths compared to the year before in Sweden, with higher impacts in other parts of the world. The fact that people spent almost 90% of their times indoors makes the indoor environment susceptible to increase the effect of human temperature exposure. This master thesis assessed the effects of climate change on the indoor thermal comfort and further analyzed the impacts on human health due to temperature exposure. Projections of typical and extreme future climate conditions until the end of the 21st century were used to simulate the indoor temperatures and heating demand of three different constructions of the same building type; original building, retrofit and new design. The indoor temperatures and heating demand were simulated with IDA ICE using future climate projections for three different locations in Sweden; Malmö, Stockholm and Umeå. The health impact assessment was projected with the use of temperature-related morbidity and mortality calculations, with the variation of two different human age groups. Results showed, that the implementation of energy efficient measures for the retrofit and new designed building reduce the heating demand with up to 62%. Simulations of the three constructions indicated highest number of overheating hours (hours over 26°C) in the original building and thermal comfort assessment showed that elderly (65+) experience on average 10% higher discomfort compared to young adults, if a 24h occupancy is considered. In contrast to the findings of the thermal comfort assessment, projection of the future morbidity and mortality indicated the highest risk for people living in the new designed building, where indoor temperature reach up to 34.4°C, with highest effects on elderly people. Future climate projections indicated that Malmö has the highest susceptibility for increased human health impacts compared to Stockholm and Umeå.}},
author = {{Rumpca, Jessica}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Impacts of climate change on indoor thermal comfort in typical Swedish residential buildings - Assessing risks for human health}},
year = {{2022}},
}