Architecture and the warmer future

current Brazilian normative indicators of thermal performance in buildings in the face of Global Warming

Abstract

The world climate is going through a time of profound transformation. Aggravated by human action, the changes cause a progressive rise in air temperature. In this sense, prescriptive standards for evaluate of  thermal environmental comfort, which are based on average climatic conditions over a prolonged period, need to be reviewed. Thus, based on climate data analysis, this work aimed to analyze the indicators, particularly climate predictions recommended in the Brazilian standard NBR 15575 for evaluating the thermal performance of indoor environments for the city of São Paulo. It was verified whether these indicators remain valid for climate models considering the effects of the increase in temperature that has occurred in recent years. To this end, air temperature values ​​at a climatological station at IAG/USP were analyzed and compared with current climate recommendations for simulation according to NBR 15575, namely, average climate temperatures over the last thirty years. Thus, the adoption of climate variations from the last year prior to the assessment proved to be more appropriate for projecting climate conditions in simulations.