Microclimate of Urban Canopy Layer and Outdoor Thermal Comfort: A Case Study in Pavlou Mela, Thessaloniki

Abstract

The present study is based on the assumption that the urban heat island (UHI) mitigation appears compelling and urgent in dense cities. To the above thematic area, recent redevelopmental interventions of open space for the microclimatic improvement and thermal comfort have been made through national and international programs at neighborhood scale (local area). One of these recovery processes is the case study of Pavlou Mela in the Greek context, which in the present discussion, focuses on the microspecific investigation through quantitative analysis of the eleven points distributed in the area of the intervention, extrapolating comparative considerations of different configurative factors post-operam. The results of this analysis tend: (i) To identify the degree of accuracy of the two most applied software packages in the scientific community (ENVImet Pro and Rayman Pro) through microclimatic parameters, namely air temperature (T_a) and surface temperature (T_s) comparing them with in-situ measurements; (ii) to evaluate the thermal sensation of man correlated with the mean radiant temperature (T_mrt) by verifying the actual improvement of thermal comfort outdoor with the index, physiologically equivalent temperature (PET).