Architects and engineers must consider a building site's climate to create structures that efficiently keep occupants comfortable. There are, however, basic deficiencies in the weather data that they commonly plug into energy simulations. Some new tools are addressing this data gap—tools that could help buildings to perform as anticipated and gracefully adapt to a changing climate.
A tool expected to be released later this year by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) targets weather data's geographic limits. ASHRAE publishes standard design-year data sets for use in energy modeling. These represent natural variation in temperature, sunshine, and other meteorological conditions observed at weather stations. Most are at airports, where conditions can vary significantly from those found in urban centers just a few miles away. Dru Crawley, building-performance director for design software vendor Bentley Systems and chair of ASHRAE's technical committee for climatic data, says urban heat island effects elevate downtown temperatures 2 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, says Crawley, a data set from the closest weather station may “mean absolutely nothing when you get to a particular building site.”
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