The CURA Lab has just released a new repository to ease access to climate change impacts in the Iberian Peninsula, including a comprehensive set of future weather files (EPW – EnergyPlus Weather) and an interactive Dashboard for visualisation and assessment of outdoor thermal comfort. The project, led by Igor Catão Martins Vaz and supervised by researchers Eugénio Rodrigues (CURA Lab/ADAI in Portugal) and Enedir Ghisi (UFSC in Brazil), aims to bridge a critical gap in urban planning and building design, easing access and visualisation of future climate data that anticipates the impacts of climate change across Portugal and Spain.
What does this tool offer? The database includes climate projections for several Iberian cities (mainland and islands) generated with the Future Weather Generator (v4.1.0). State-of-the-art CMIP6 models and various emission scenarios (ranging from the sustainable SSP1-2.6 to the high-emission SSP5-8.5) were used for the 2050 and 2080 horizons.
Project Highlights:
- Open Access: The EPW files are freely available to researchers and professionals in the construction and energy sectors.
- Intuitive Visualisation: The Power BI Dashboard allows users to filter data by city and instantly visualise indicators such as the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) and the Discomfort Index (DI).
- Decision Support: The tool facilitates the assessment of thermal comfort and energy efficiency in buildings under future scenarios, supporting the development of more robust adaptation strategies.
Methodology and Innovation: The work integrates an automated Python pipeline, ensuring data validation and comparability. This initiative reinforces CURA Lab’s mission to provide scalable, science-based solutions for urban climate challenges. Outdoor thermal comfort was calculated using hourly data and a simplified fully shadowed situation, highlighting possible future conditions in Iberian cities.
To explore the dashboard and download the data, visit the official record on Zenodo: 👉 Iberian Peninsula Dashboard