Future weather files to support climate resilient building design in Vancouver
Date
2018
Authors
Ek, M.
Murdock, Trevor Q.
Sobie, Stephen R.
Cavka, B.
Coughlin, B.
Wells, R.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
1st International Conference on New Horizons in Green Civil Engineering
Abstract
Since local weather and climate greatly affect the construction and performance of buildings, reliable meteorological data is essential when simulating building performance. It is well understood that climate change will affect future weather and there is a growing interest in generating future weather files to support climate resilient building design. Weather files that account for climate change have not been widely used for the lower mainland region of British Columbia. In this study, hourly weather files for future climate conditions in Vancouver are created for three time periods using a “morphing” methodology. Morphing uses results from global climate models to adjust observed weather data at a specific location. In this study, daily data from climate simulations for the RCP8.5 emission scenario have been used. The weather variables that have been adjusted are dry-bulb temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, cloud cover, wind speed and atmospheric pressure. The impact of climate change on the energy performance of a multi-unit residential building located on the University of BC campus is analyzed using the energy modelling software EnergyPlus. The simulation results indicate that the changing climate in Vancouver, following RCP8.5, would have a considerable effect on building energy performance and energy demand due to decrease in space heating and increase in cooling requirements.
Description
Keywords
climate change, UN SDG 13: Climate Action, weather file, energy modelling, building simulation, downscaling, #journal article, Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC)
Citation
Ek, M., Murdock, T. Q., Sobie, S. R., Cavka, B., Coughlin, B., & Wells, R. (2018). Future weather files to support climate resilient building design in Vancouver. In P. Mukhopadhyaya (Ed.), 1st International Conference on New Horizons in Green Civil Engineering (pp. 408–416).