Impact of short-term thermal experience on thermal sensation: A case study of Chongqing, China

Abstract Sudden changes in outdoor air temperature within the time scale of several days can affect human thermal comfort demand. Although the influence of short-term thermal experience on the thermal sensation (STEI) in one season (e.g., in summer) has been focused on, the differences of this effect in different seasons have rarely been studied. In this study, to investigate the regularity of the difference, a follow-up field survey was conducted from July 2019 to January 2020 in Chongqing, China. The results show that when outdoor air temperature suddenly rises, the STEI is higher in summer than that in autumn (approximately 0.14 scales) when the indoor air temperature is 28–30 °C. When the indoor air temperature is 24–27 °C, no significant difference was observed. In addition, the STEI is higher in autumn than that in summer (approximately 0.09 scales) when the outdoor air temperature suddenly decreases, and when the STD is −1 °C, the impact of short-term thermal experience on the body in autumn is less than that in winter, by approximately 0.04 scales. The effect can cause a variation of approximately 0.28–0.84 °C in the body's neutral temperature, with a maximum of 1.3 °C based on Griffiths method (G = 0.356/K).