Essay On Microclimate

Microclimate is a climate condition in a relatively small or specific area [1]. It often has weather and atmospheric conditions that differ from other areas [2]. Improving the microclimate in a location can enhance the thermal comfort of humans [3,4]. Thermal comfort, is known as the human response towards a thermal environment [5]. Human thermal comfort is usually affected by the temperature of the air [3,4,6], relative humidity [3,4,5,6], wind speed [3,4] and solar radiation [4]. This review aims to firstly, discuss the factors that affect a microclimate and how it improves thermal comfort. This paper will also introduce about the urban heat island (UHI) effect and suggest ways to control the microclimate to remove the UHI effect and enhance thermal comfort.

Factors affecting microclimate and how they affect thermal comfort

The microclimate in an urban area can be affected by factors like tree canopy covers and wind speed [7].

Tree canopy covers cause a decrease in energy penetration through the soil, as the canopies absorb and reflect away the solar radiation [7]. When the vegetation is denser, it allows the soil and air below the canopy to be cooler [7] which causes an achievement in

With the rising urbanisation in cities, the urban heat island (UHI) effect increases due to the industrial transformation of the surroundings [3,6]. This condition is caused by several reasons like the loss of vegetations, heat released from industrial exercises, smoke from cars and other human activities [6]. This UHI effect will have a negative impact on urban buildings energy consumption, outdoor air quality [3,6] decrease thermal comfort, and ultimately affect human health [3]. Thus, to improve the quality of life and mitigate the UHI effect, it is important to control the microclimate by alleviating heat stress