Overview
Climate change has the potential to significantly impact the built environment, as increasing temperatures will lead to either more overheating or greater cooling demands in buildings. The NFCS connected researchers from Met Éireann with the TRANSLATE standardised projections to facilitate the production of a building standards service that would directly feed into modern building energy models. As a result, a set of weather and climate data files were produced for use in building energy models when designing new buildings. These data files are available for six locations around Ireland. These come in the form of both a Test Reference Year (TRY) and 3 Design Summer Years (DSY), for both past data and future TRANSLATE projections. Previously the only weather files that existed in Ireland were the CIBSE (Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers) files for Belfast.
About the case study: Watch the explainer video below to find out more:
Building files as a climate service
A Climate Service is the provision of climate information to assist in climate-smart decision-making. The service must respond to user needs and must be based on scientifically credible information and expertise. Climate services are most effective when there is collaboration between users and providers of climate information and expertise. These services exist along a continuum in time and help users make climate smart decisions both now and in the future. The building files described here are a climate service that was developed using standardised projections for Ireland towards the end of this century. The graphic below indicates where on the continuum a climate service such as this is situated throughout time.
Contact us: NFCS@met.ie
Partners
The TRANSLATE research initiative is a collaborative effort led by climate researchers from University of Galway – Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) and University College Cork – SFI Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine (MaREI), supported by Met Éireann climatologists.
Relevant Publications
Griffin, S., Mateus C., and Lambkin, K. 2023. Climate data for use in building design – Past and Future weather files for overheating risk assessment. Climatological Note No. 21. Met Éireann.