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Projection of thermal bioclimate conditions over West Bengal, India in response to global warming based on climate model
* 1 , 2
1  Swami Vivekananda Institute of Science and Technology
2  Institute for Meteorology, Freie Universitat, Berlin, Germany
Academic Editor: Andreas Matzarakis

Abstract:

The study of human bioclimate conditions is becoming popular in climate perception for the improvement of public health system. The objective of the present study is to analyze the past and future thermal bioclimate conditions over 15 stations in West Bengal (WB), India. The bioclimate conditions are measured by daily Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) based on climate data extracted from Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX)-South Asia. The initial purpose of this study is to present the interannual distribution of PET classes over the considered stations of WB for the past period (1986-2005) and three future time periods namely (i) near future (2016-2035), (ii) mid future (2046-2065), (iii) far future (2080-2099). The results from the monthly distribution of PET reveal heat stress conditions from April to June and acceptable thermal conditions from November that persists till March for all the stations except Darjeeling. To focus on future PET changes over WB in context to reference period (1986-2005), warm and hot PET classes show prominent rise in all the future epochs under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios. Highest percentage in warm PET class (35.7-43.8 °C) during far future time slice under RCP8.5 conditions appears in stations close to Bay of Bengal such as Digha, Diamond Harbour, Canning, Baruipur. Simultaneously, hot PET class (˃43.8 °C) records up to 10% for Kolkata, Dum Dum, Kharagpur, Siliguri and more than 10% in Sriniketan, Malda, Asansol and Birbhum. Darjeeling will have the largest decrease in very cool PET class (˂3.3°C) in far future period. The explicit amount of change in temperature is seemingly connected to the increasing levels of heat stress over WB are evident from the relative mean monthly changes in PET.

Keywords: Human biothermal conditions, PET, RayMan model, Urban climate, West Bengal
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