Search

The built environment has been a significant contributor to global carbon emissions. It, therefore, has a vital role to play in the reduction efforts of future climate change. While the design of buildings may determine future energy use for cooling, heating, and lighting during the operational stage of the building, this study aims to observe the effect of the building design on the operational as well as the whole-life carbon emissions. Past studies have focused on either the operational carbon or the embodied carbon of a building. Using a cradle-to-grave assessment of a typical UK supermarket, this study explores the relationship between embodied carbon and operational carbon. Additionally, it examines the effects of the variables between three approved construction methods of the same design on the whole life of carbon. These methods are a steel structural frame and cladding panel external wall, steel frame and poroton walls, precast concrete and glulam frame and precast concrete walls. The findings of this research will contribute to mitigation strategies for the environmental impacts of supermarket building construction whilst providing a framework for future assessment of the whole-life carbon of supermarket buildings. Practical Application : Employing the life cycle assessment methodology, this paper examines the potential of minimising both embodied and operational carbon by observing the whole life carbon. Highlighting the influence of the GHG emission contributing factors in each stage on each other. Additionally, the recommended methodology for the supermarket building types of this case study, could be adapted for other types of buildings. The findings could also augment carbon emission research and guide the development of supermarket buildings to low carbon intensive. Furthermore, collaboration with the industry in carrying out this research aids in adopting the findings as practical and theoretical guides for engineers and designers in reducing the building sector's harmful environmental impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we estimate the climatological impact of urbanisation in the UK as derived from the present and historical set of temperature observations from the UK network of meteorological observing stations. A well-established method for interpolation of in-situ temperature observations is used to make an estimate of temperatures at urban weather station locations based on rural climate data. This method avoids reliance on simple pairing of urban–rural stations commonly used for station-based analysis, and explicitly accounts for other topographic features such as elevation and coastal effects that will introduce geographical differences in temperature. The method is then applied to select a network of 'rural' weather stations deemed to be largely free from the direct influence of urban micro-climate effects. Comparison of the temperature grids derived from the 'urban' and 'rural only' station sets enables quantification of climatological urban heat island intensity across the UK and the influence on temperature in the UK national observational network observations from urban stations. Practical application: This new method allows the estimation of the urban heat island for towns and cities of any size. Researchers will find it useful when making predictions of the urban heat island and of climate change in the urban environment, and when investigating morbidity and mortality due to overheating in buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the likely effects on gas and electricity consumption and carbon emissions from heating and cooling systems in existing dwellings up to 2080, assuming a widespread uptake of cooling systems. This area of research is highly sensitive to the myriad of possible inputs and thus holds a wide range of predicted outcomes. However, general trends have been found, showing significant sensitivity to ventilation rate, U-values, occupant behaviour and location. Heating demand will still be dominant over cooling demand in UK dwellings by the 2080s, based on an UKCIP02 A1F1 weather scenario. A national worst case scenario for the 2050s, shows a 10 megatonne CO2 emissions saving on present levels largely due to a 20% reduction in gas consumption. Practical applications: The balance of heating and cooling demand causes more modest changes in CO2 than first anticipated. Despite first perceptions of future energy use in housing and climate change, heating appears to remain the major load rather than cooling, even into the 2080s. These predictions of future CO2 emissions will be useful to those in the building industry planning appropriate proportionate climate adaptation and climate mitigation measures. Also, the prediction of changes to future energy demands from the housing sector will be of interest to energy providers considering future demands for heating and cooling and may feed into larger bottom-up energy models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buildings typically have a long life span, which can easily reach 50 or 100 years. In the light of expected climate change it is therefore important to look towards the future, and to analyse how buildings will cope with the changes in climate that are predicted by the climatologists. In such long-term predictions of building performance, uncertainties play a large role. This paper describes a preliminary study that aims to better map out the consequences of dealing with a whole range of uncertainties in the specific case of predicting the effect of climate change on the energy use and thermal comfort (overheating) in the large stock of terraced houses in the UK. Uncertainties in climate change prediction are compared with other variable factors like building occupancy patterns, actual thickness of construction materials and HVAC control settings. Uncertainties have been propagated in a transient model of these terraced houses using the transient simulation program EnergyPlus. In order to explore the large range of input variants use has been made of a genetic algorithm. The current search and solution spaces are discussed, putting the impact of climate change in perspective with regards to other changes and developments that might increase or decrease overheating. Overall, the findings indicate that uncertainties in long term thermal performance predictions run high, with standard deviations of over 100%. However, the robustness of the contemporary dwelling design is fortunately high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building design has traditionally assumed an unchanging climate. Various weather statistics are used for design calculations. These numbers are by definition fixed in an unchanging climate, but most will change if climate change is occurring. This requires a re-examination of the weather design criteria for buildings. Regular updating may be sufficient, but has the disadvantage of always being retrospective, and other approaches may be needed. Severe weather events and global temperature patterns are well documented, but little work has been done to look at the trends in climate statistics for building design. This paper presents trends in some key weather statistics used in building design over the period 1977–1999. Finally, some conclusions are drawn on the use of climate statistics for building design when climate change is occurring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Discusses issues related to climate change and its impact on building design in Great Britain. Failure of the Johannesburg Summit; Weather statistics between 1990 and 2000; Account of a related convention.

Traditionally, hourly weather years such as the test reference years (TRYs) and design summer years (DSYs) have been used for building energy and thermal performance analysis. Until recently, these weather datasets were based on observed measurements, but the need to adapt buildings to the impacts of likely future climate change has introduced a requirement to incorporate climate projections, such as the UK Climate Projections (UKCP09), into building performance analysis. Four research projects, funded by the EPSRC, examined the use of UKCP09 data, and the associated Weather Generator tool, in producing weather files appropriate for building simulation. A methodology called ‘morphing’, previously used to create the currently available to practitioners, UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP02) based, CIBSE Future Weather Years, will also be discussed here as a potential alternative for the production of UKCP09-based weather files. This article reviews all above methodologies developed to produce weather files for building simulation, using the UKCP09 projections, and discusses their benefits and limitations as well as their ease of use by designers.Practical application: This article aims to provide a comprehensive review of the various methodologies currently available for the production of future weather files for building thermal and energy performance simulation using the UKCP09 projections. This analysis aims to provide users with the benefits and limitations associated with each methodology and end product based on their accessibility, consistency with other currently used datasets, computational resources required and spatial availability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The climate is changing, both globally and in the UK. To adapt effectively, engineers and planners need as much information as possible on how the climate will evolve. The UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) provided this in 2002 with UKCIP02 and the latest data UKCP09, which provides data to a resolution of 5 km square grids over the UK. Data sets from these were used in this study along with the historical measured data for three locations — Bracknell (London), Manchester and Edinburgh — to analyse critically the likely changes that may occur in the key climate variables, that is temperature, sunshine duration and solar irradiation. These parameters have an important bearing on the design and function of buildings and building services.Sunshine duration is the main variable that is used to obtain solar radiation in the UKCP09 5 km grid data. For the grids containing Bracknell, Manchester and Edinburgh, most of the UKCP09 data sets for the years 2050 and 2080 showed abnormally elongated sunshine duration, that is from sunrise to sunset, for clear days. In contrast, the latest historic measured data sets indicate only a third of the above sunshine duration. Note that the latter data are used in cooling load design calculations and for the generation of sol-air temperatures.1 Of particular note was the anomalous occurrence in UKCP09 of late evening sunshine duration. For Bracknell and Edinburgh, the sunshine duration at hour ending 20 and beyond showed substantial amount of predicted sunshine. As a result of this work, corrective action has been proposed for UKCP09 data.Furthermore, a very significant increase was also noted in solar irradiation for UKCP09. For the historic measured data for Bracknell, the clear day noon irradiation is 818 Wh/m 2. For the UKCP09 grid containing Bracknell the 2080 High Emission scenario data gives an average value of 1002 Wh/m2, an increase of 23%. The same trend occurs for Edinburgh, (a present value of 789 Wh/m 2 and the predicted value of 948 Wh/m2, an increase of 20%). Note that compounded with presently found increase of 4—5°C increase for the above locations, the substantial increase in irradiation will have a much more pronounced increase in the cooling load of buildings.An evaluation of the change in the character of solar radiation was also undertaken. This was done by noting the change in the diffuse fraction of global irradiation. For Bracknell and Edinburgh historic data and UKCP09 data 2080 High Emission data set show a drastic decrease, respectively from 0.37 to 0.13 and from 0.33 to 0.14. Diffuse fraction may be used as an indicator of the prevailing sky clarity. If the predictions come true a drastic decrease in the diffuse fraction of this magnitude signifies a radical shift in the character of solar climate for the future. The current solar climate of Bracknell is known for its above average turbidity, the latter stemming from the following factors: inland location, high-density housing, proximity to Heathrow airport and M25 London orbital motorway. Whether such an extreme shift in the sky clarity will occur within a matter of 60—70 years is open to discussion.Practical applications: To adapt effectively against the challenge posed by climate change engineers need to know the extent to which the basic climate variables such as temperature and solar radiation will change. This work has used basic data from the UKCP09 project to analyse the extent of the above change with respect to the basic and other derived data. It was shown that for Scottish and English locations a temperature rise of up to 4—5°C may occur between the present age and the year 2080 for High Emission scenario. It was also shown that the corresponding irradiation strength may increase around 22%. Furthermore, it was also found that if these predictions come true then a drastic decrease in the diffuse fraction of irradiation will produce a radical shift in ... [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cities are known to exert a significant influence on their local climate, and are generally warmer than their surroundings. However, climate models generally do not include a representation of urban areas, and so climate projections from models are likely to underestimate temperatures in urban areas. A simple methodology has been developed to calculate the urban heat island (UHI) from a set of gridded temperature data; the UHI may then be added to climate model projections and weather data files. This methodology allows the UHI to be calculated on a monthly basis and downscaled to hourly for addition to weather generator data. The UHI intensities produced are found to be consistent with observed data. Practical application: There is overwhelming consensus amongst the scientific community that the Earth's climate is warming. In addition to the effects of climate change the urban heat island (UHI) effect can increase air temperatures significantly in urban areas above those of the rural areas around them. The proposed methodology for calculating the UHI from a set of gridded temperature data allows the UHI to be added to climate model projections such as UKCP09 or HadRM3 and weather data files. The methodology also allows for the temporal downscaling of the UHI from monthly values to hourly data for use in building thermal simulation software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]