The new Universal Thermal Climate Index

A Symposium on the findings and accomplishments of the EU COST ACTION 730, on the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI), was held 15-16 April 2009, at WMO headquarters. The Symposium, co-sponsored by COST and WMO, brought together an international group of scientists that have been developing UTCI, to review progress, identify remaining challenges, and to look forward to the further development of the concept to serve the requirements of WMO’s188 Members.

This action will result in a new tool, with universal application potential, to assist countries to provide improved information to their public and key decision-makers on the thermal environment and the implications of dangerous thermal conditions. The Action participants will publish a variety of reports and agreed at this Symposium to develop a joint WMO-EU-COST publication with targeted theoretical and practical implementation guidance aimed at the WMO National Meteorological and Hydrological Services around the world. Given the findings of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) that temperatures will generally increase, and that episodes of extreme heat events will become more common in some regions in future, this activity is timely and should contribute greatly to individual, corporate and institutional capability to better adapt to climate variability and change.

Background

The assessment of the thermo-physiological effects of the atmospheric environment is one of the key issues in human biometeorology. In the past, more than 100 different procedures of various degrees of sophistication have been developed. However, only in the last 30 years has significant progress been made, with the development of comprehensive heat budget models for the human body which take all significant heat exchange mechanisms into account. It was recognized that there is a need to take into account the current advances in science and to facilitate global harmonization of the development and dissemination of a universally valid climate index.

To meet this need, the EU COST Action on UTCI (Action 730) was established in 2005, under the leadership of Gerd Jendritzky, Germany (Chairperson) and George Havenith, United Kingdom (Vice-Chairperson). Three working groups were established with George Havenith as Chair of Working Group 1 on thermo-physiological modelling and testing; Philipp Weihs (Austria) as Chair of Working Group 2 on meteorological and environmental data; and Ekateria Batchvarova (Bulgaria) as Chair of Working Group 3 on Applications. Philipp Weihs was also responsible for the relationship with another COST Action (COST 726) on data and radiation modelling.

The main objective of the COST Action on UTCI is to develop and make easily available a physiologically assessment model of the thermal environment in order to significantly enhance applications related to health and well-being. The target audiences for UTCI are in the fields of public weather service, the public health system, environment protection agencies, researchers, people working in the field, regional and urban planners; and the general public. UTCI will be useful for precautionary planning, urban and regional planning, environmental epidemiology and climate impact research and will be disseminated in the form of daily forecasts, warnings and bioclimate mapping.

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