Effect of climate change on outdoor thermal comfort in humid climates

Background: galicia, in northwest spain, experiences warm summers and winters. however, the higher relativehumidity that prevails the whole year through and the location of the summer hot points are related to realweather heat stroke in the hottest season. however, planet global heating was recently analyzed for the climate ingalicia. climate change was found to be able to trigger effects that involve a new situation with new potentialregions of risk. in this paper, 50 weather stations were selected to sample the weather conditions in this humidregion, over the last 10 years. from these results, new regions with a potential for heat stroke risk in the next 20years were identified using the humidex index.results: results reveal that during the last 10 years, the winter season presents more comfortable conditions,whereas the summer season presents the highest humidex value. further, the higher relative humidity throughoutthe whole year reveals that the humidex index clearly depends upon the outdoor temperature.conclusions: global planet heating shows a definite effect on the outdoor comfort conditions reachingunbearable degrees in the really hottest zones. therefore, this effect will clearly influence tourism and riskprevention strategies in these areas.