TROPICAL ARCHITECTURE

> Warm humid zone

This climate zone is best visited in winter, autumn or spring. Summer is very humid and very warm. Winter, with mostly fine days, is warm in the
northern part of the zone and mild in the southern part. It is the most comfortable season in the northern part of the zone. In any part of the zone,
winter is recommended for those planning a physically active holiday. Winter also has the fewest rainy days. Brisbane, with an average of 24 dry days
in July, has this type of climate. humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification prefix D) is a climatic region typified by large seasonal
temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers, and cold (sometimes severely) winters.

Precipitation is relatively well-distributed year-round in many areas, while others may see a marked reduction in wintry precipitation and even a
wintertime drought. Snowfall, regardless of average seasonal totals, occurs in all areas with a humid continental climate and is in many such places
more common than rain during the height of winter. In places with sufficient wintertime precipitation the snow cover is often deep. Most summer
rainfall occurs during thunderstorms and a very occasional tropical system.

Humid continental climates tend to be found above 40° N latitude, and within the central and northeastern portions of North America, Europe, and
Asia. They are much less commonly found in the Southern Hemisphere due to the larger ocean area at that latitude and thus greater maritime
moderation.

The Köppen definition of this climate, regarding temperature, is as follows: the mean temperature of the coldest month be below −3 °C (26.6 °F)
(some climatologists prefer to use the freezing mark), and that there be at least four months with mean temperatures at or above 10 °C (50 °F). In
addition, the location in question must not be semi-arid or arid.

> desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Deserts
are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than 250 millimetres (10 in) per year,[1][2] or as areas where more water is lost by
evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation.[3] In the Köppen climate classification system, deserts are classed as BWh (hot desert) or BWk
(temperate desert). In the Thornthwaite climate classification system, deserts would be classified as arid megathermal climates. Dry Desert is, as
you can tell from the name, hot and dry. Most Hot and Dry Deserts don’t have very many plants. They do have some low down plants though. The only
animals they have that can survive have the ability to burrow under ground. This is because they would not be able to live in the hot sun and heat.
They only come out in the night when it is a little cooler.

A cold desert is a desert that has snow in the winter instead of just dropping a few degrees in temperature like they would in a Hot and Dry Desert.
It never gets warm enough for plants to grow. Just maybe a few grasses and mosses. The animals in Cold Deserts also have to burrow but in this case
to keep warm, not cool. That is why you might find some of the same animals here as you would in the Hot and Dry Deserts.

Deserts cover about one fifth of the Earth’s land surface. Most Hot and Dry Deserts are near the Tropic of Cancer or the Tropic of Capricorn. Cold
Deserts are near the Arctic part of the world.

Hot and Dry Deserts temperature ranges from 20 to 25° C. The extreme maximum temperature for Hot Desert ranges from 43.5 to 49° C. Cold
Deserts temperature in winter ranges from -2 to 4° C and in the summer 21 to 26° C a year

The precipitation in Hot and Dry Deserts and the precipitation in Cold Deserts is different. Hot and Dry Deserts usually have very little rainfall
and/or concentrated rainfall in short periods between long rainless periods. This averages out to under 15 cm a year. Cold Deserts usually have lots
of snow. They also have rain around spring. This averages out to 15 – 26 cm a year.

Hot and Dry Deserts are warm throughout the fall and spring seasons and very hot during the summer. the winters usually have very little if any
rainfall. Cold Deserts have quite a bit of snow during winter. The summer and the beginning of the spring are barely warm enough for a few lichens,
grasses and mosses to grow.

Hot and Dry Deserts vegetation is very rare. Plants are almost all ground-hugging shrubs and short woody trees. All of the leaves are replete
(packed with nutrients). Some examples of these kinds of plant are Turpentine Bush, Prickly Pears, and Brittle Bush. For all of these plants to survive
they have to have adaptations. Some of the adaptations in this case are the ability to store water for long periods of time and the ability to stand
the hot weather.

Cold Desert’s plants are scattered. In areas with little shade,about 10 percent of the ground is covered with plants. In some areas of sagebrush it
reaches 85 percent. The height of scrub varies from 15 cm to 122 cm. All plants are either deciduous and more or less contain spiny leaves.

Hot and Dry Deserts animals include small nocturnal (only active at night) carnivores. There are also insects, arachnids, reptiles, and birds. Some
examples of these animals are Borrowers, Mourning Wheatears, and Horned Vipers. Cold Deserts have animals like Antelope, Ground Squirrels, Jack
Rabbits, and Kangaroo Rats.

>HOT MARITIME DESERT CLIMATE -1

1•Air temperature: Hot season: mean max:34-40 c

mean min :24-30 c

Cool season: mean max: 20-25 c
mean min : 10-18 c
Diurnal range: 10-20 c
1•Relative humidity: 50% -90% Great evaporation from the sea
2•Vapor however remains suspended in the air causing very uncomfortable conditions.

HOT MARITIME DESERT CLIMATE -2

Precipitation:
1•Slight and variable throughout the year 15-155 mm/ annum
Sky Conditions:
1•Normally clear dark blue and sometimes hazy due to the suspended water particles in the air
Solar Radiation:
1•Mostly direct and strong, but with strong diffuse due to hazy sky.
2•Strong reflected component from ground and buildings causing glare.
3•Long wave re-radiation from all heated surfaces is not as rapid as pure Hot-Arid regions causing temperature diurnal range being not very high.
>tropical upland

Upland watersheds in the tropics provide a range of crucial ecosystem goods and services. How they are governed can be crucial to human well-being
and environmental sustainability. Communities, governments and firms have taken many different approaches to sharing these benefits, negotiating
trade-offs between them, and allocating the risks and burdens if services are degraded or lost. This review of policies and projects draws four
initial conclusions: (1) multi-stakeholder planning improves the assessment of underappreciated services and users, but does not eliminate importance
of power relations; (2) regulations invariably create winners and losers with outcomes that often depend on pre-existing institutions; (3) information
and incentives can change behaviours and are therefore important complement to plans and regulations; (4) monitoring is the least well developed
area of governance. Many challenges in integrating ecological and social understanding remain.

>Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by seasonal changes in precipitation,[1] but is now used to describe
seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea.[2] [3] Usually, the term monsoon
is used to refer to the rainy phase of a seasonally-changing pattern, although technically there is also a dry phase.

The major monsoon systems of the world consist of the West African and Asia-Australian monsoons. The inclusion of the North and South American
monsoons with incomplete wind reversal may be debated.

The term was first used in English in British India (now India, Bangladesh and Pakistan) and neighbouring countries to refer to the big seasonal
winds blowing from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea in the southwest bringing heavy rainfall to the area. ProcessMonsoons may be
considered as large-scale sea breezes, due to seasonal heating and the resulting development of a thermal low over a continental landmass.
They are caused by the larger amplitude of the seasonal cycle of land temperature compared to that of nearby oceans. This differential
warming happens because heat in the ocean is mixed vertically through a "mixed layer" that may be fifty metres deep, through the action of
wind and buoyancy-generated turbulence, whereas the land surface conducts heat slowly, with the seasonal signal penetrating perhaps a
metre or so. Additionally, the specific heat capacity of liquid water is significantly higher than that of most materials that make up land.
Together, these factors mean that the heat capacity of the layer participating in the seasonal cycle is much larger over the oceans than over
land, with the consequence that the air over the land warms faster and reaches a higher temperature than the air over the ocean. The hot
air over the land tends to rise, creating an area of low pressure. This creates a steady wind blowing toward the land, bringing the moist near-
surface air over the oceans with it. Similar rainfall is caused by the moist ocean air being lifted upwards by mountains,[15] surface heating,[16]
convergence at the surface, divergence aloft, or from storm-produced outflows at the surface.[18] However the lifting occurs, the air cools
due to expansion in lower pressure, which in turn produces condensation.

Asia

The Asian monsoons may be classified into a few sub-systems, such as the South Asian Monsoon which affects the Indian subcontinent and
surrounding regions, and the East Asian Monsoon which affects southern China, Korea and parts of Japan.
South Asian Monsoon

Southwest Monsoon

The southwestern summer monsoons occur from June through September. The Thar Desert and adjoining areas of the northern and central Indian
subcontinent heats up considerably during the hot summers, which causes a low pressure area over the northern and central Indian subcontinent.

Northeast Monsoon

Around September, with the sun fast retreating south, the northern land mass of the Indian subcontinent begins to cool off rapidly. With this air
pressure begins to build over northern India, the Indian Ocean and its surrounding atmosphere still holds its heat. This causes the cold
wind to sweep down from the Himalayas and Indo-Gangetic Plain towards the vast spans of the Indian Ocean south of the Deccan
peninsula. This is known as the Northeast

Retreating Monsoon.

While travelling towards the Indian Ocean, the dry cold wind picks up some moisture from the Bay of Bengal and pours it over peninsular India and
parts of Sri Lanka. Cities like Madras, which get less rain from the Southwest Monsoon, receives rain from this Monsoon. About 50% to 60% of the
rain received by the state of Tamil Nadu is from the Northeast Monsoon.[27] In Southern Asia, the northeastern monsoons take place from December
to early March when the surface high-pressure system is strongest.[28] The jet stream in this region splits into the southern subtropical jet and the
polar jet. The subtropical flow directs northeasterly winds to blow across southern Asia, creating dry air streams which produce clear skies over
India. Meanwhile, a low pressure system develops over South-East Asia and Australasia and winds are directed toward Australia known as a monsoon
trough.

East Asian Monsoon

The East Asian monsoon affects large parts of Indo-China, Philippines, China, Korea and Japan. It is characterised by a warm, rainy summer monsoon
and a cold, dry winter monsoon. The rain occurs in a concentrated belt that stretches east-west except in East China where it is tilted east-
northeast over Korea and Japan. The seasonal rain is known as Meiyu in China, Changma in Korea, and Bai-u in Japan, with the latter two resembling
frontal rain. The onset of the summer monsoon is marked by a period of premonsoonal rain over South China and Taiwan in early May. From May
through August, the summer monsoon shifts through a series of dry and rainy phases as the rain belt moves northward, beginning over Indochina and
the South China Sea (May), to the Yangtze River Basin and Japan (June) and finally to North China and Korea (July). When the monsoon ends in
August, the rain belt moves back to South China.

Tropical Design Module 2: Climate Elements

Basic Concept:

"Weather" is the set of atmospheric conditions prevailing at a given place and time.
"Climate" can be defined as the integration in time of weather conditions, characteristics of a certain geographical location.

At the global level climates are formed by the differential solar heat input and the uniform heat emission over the earth's surface.

The movement of air masses and of moisture-bearing clouds is driven by temperature differentials and strongly influenced by the Coriolis force.

Classification of Climates:

Equatorial
Example: Those countries lying just above or below the equator, Southeast Asian Countries, Central America and the Amazon Basin in South America

Cool Temperate
Example: N.W. Europe, Canada, and parts of North America

Warm Temperate
Example: Mediterranean Countries

Cool Temperate
Example: N.W. Europe, Canada, and parts of North America

Arctic
Example: Iceland, Greenland, Northern Russia, and China

For the purposes of building design a simple system based on the nature of the thermal problem in the particular location is often used.

Further Classification of Tropical, Sub-Tropical & Equatorial Climates:

A. Warm Humid (Tropical Island) overheating is not as great as in hot-dry areas, but it is aggravated by very high humidities, restricting the
evaporation potential. The diurnal temperature variation is small.

B. Hot Dry (Arid/Maritime Desert) main problem is overheating, but the air is dry, so the evaporative cooling mechanism of the body is not
restricted. There is usually a large diurnal (day - night) temperature variation.

C. Composite (Tropical Uplands)

Warm Humid:
High temp during the day, low diurnal change; Relatively high humidity: Heavy rains especially during monsoon season; Cloudy and glaring sky; Lesser
ground vegetation
Hot Dry:
Very high temp during the day; large diurnal range; can be quite low in winter; Low and very low humidity; fairly constant throughout the year; Often
low or very low precipitation; Little or no cloud. Cold and non-glaring sky; Sparse and often bare ground vegetation. Very high glare from ground. Rich
soil which only requires water
Composite:
Mixture of warm/humid and hot/dry.; 1/3 to 2/3 ratio of monsoon period

The general climate (macroclimate) is influenced by the topography, the vegetation and the nature of the environment on a regional scale
(mesoclimate) or at a local level within the site itself (microclimate).

Tropical Climate: Philippines

Temperature – average mean temperature (dbt) 20 – 30 deg C

small diurnal temperature change/range 2-5 deg

Humidity Levels - 50% - 100% Relative Humidity

Wind Conditions – Slow Wind Flow; Average of 2 m/s

Prevailing Wind in the Philippines :

Amihan (NE) – November to April
Habagat (SW) - May to October

Sky Conditions – Overcast Sky most of the time; a lot of reflected heat/ solar gain

Precipitation – high during the year – average of 1000mm/yr

Micro-Climate:
Many factors contribute to micro-climate, for instance, the location of hills, rivers, streams and lakes, the position of buildings and trees, whether
the site is on coast or inland, in a town or in the rural areas, whether the location is above sea level, etc.

Some micro-climate phenomena are:

- land/sea breeze
- Courtyards
- Evaporative cooling
- Orientation
- Slope of land height in relation to air movement, rainfall and temperature

Urban Climate:
Almost every city in the world today is hotter - usually between 1 to 4 deg C hotter - than its surrounding area. This difference between urban and
rural temperatures is called the "urban-heat-island" effect", and it has been intensifying throughout this century.

Elements of Climate Needed in Design:

A. DBT (Dry-Bulb Temperature) – measurement of the temperature of the air and as far as possible excludes any radiant temperature; measured
in the shade.
instrument – silvered thermometer (in 0F or 0C)
- monthly mean of daily maxima (deg C)
- monthly mean of daily minima (deg C)
- standard deviation of distribution

B. Wind – direction, frequency and force of the wind throughout the year.
instrument – vane anemometer for high speeds
kata thermometer for low speeds

C. RH (Relative Humidity) – amount of water in the air.

instrument – hygrometer (in %) or sling psychrometer
measured in 0F or 0C if WBT (wet-bulb temperature)
- early morning relative humidity (in %)
- early afternoon relative humidity (in %)

D. Precipitation – mainly rainfall but could also be dew.

instrument – rain gauge measured in inches or centimeters
- monthly total (in mm)

E. Sky – either cloud cover, measured in 1/8 or 1/10 or % of the sky covered, or it could be measured in hours of sunshine
Cloud cover - based on visual observation and expressed as a fraction of the sky hemisphere (tenths, or 'octas' = eights) covered by clouds.
Sunshine duration - the period of clear sunshine (when a sharp shadow is cast), measured by a sunshine recorder which burns a trace
on a paper strip, expressed as hours per day or month.

F. Solar Radiation - measured by a pyranometer, on an unobstructed horizontal surface and recorded either as the continuously varying irradiance
(W/m2), or through an electronic integrator as irradiance over the hour or day.

Four environmental variables directly affecting thermal comfort are temperature, humidity, solar radiation and air movement, these are the four
constituents of climate most important for the purposes of building design. Rainfall data may sometimes be needed, such as for designing drainage
systems and assessing the level of precipitation.