UNDERSTANDING THERMAL COMFORT AND THERMAL ADAPTATION IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

This study investigated the historical field data collected in Singapore over the past 20 years. First, critical evaluation of the past thermal comfort data was performed which successfully challenged the perennial assumption of equidistance and analysed different patterns and trends of thermal comfort, thermal preference, and neutrality in the hot and humid climate of Singapore. Subsequently, thermal comfort modelling was carried out using MLR and KNN. Comparing the model performance of the two classifiers, the MLR models had higher accuracies.

Therefore, the results are informative for the use of thermal sensation scales in future studies. Also, the analysis of the longitudinal change in thermal comfort contributed valuable information for the understanding of long-term thermal adaptation in Singapore. Lastly, the thermal comfort modelling in this study provided valuable proof of concept of using classification on thermal comfort data in the tropics, which paved the way for future attempts.