Take a bath in front of the whole neighborhood

That's what my wife does in her Southern Thai village, doesn't think a thing of it, carrying on several conversations at once. The Thai bathe at least twice a day, and in all the years -- more than 50 -- I've been here, I've never smelled a single case of B.O., even on crowded buses in the heat of the afternoon in Bangkok. Remarkable how at the end of a hot day, everyone's shirt seems as freshly pressed as in the morning.

It was a shock to move from Thailand in 1963 to England, where many people bathed once a week. Standing in line next to nice English ladies one day at Sainsbury market, I actually thought I might be downwind from the cheese department.

A wet pillow last night

This is my idea of the time to turn on an air conditioner, when you begin to sweat into your pillow in the middle of the night. Turns out the room temperature was 30 degrees (86 F), dew point 25, "wet rag" temp 27. This exceeds the limit for sub-sweating body temperature equilibrium when lying on a western-style mattress. (see free sample chapter for more on this).

A skinny Thai sleeping on a bamboo mat will be able to put up with more.

A wet pillow last night

This is my idea of the time to turn on an air conditioner, when you begin to sweat into your pillow in the middle of the night. Turns out the room temperature was 30 degrees (86 F), dew point 25, "wet rag" temp 27. This exceeds the limit for sub-sweating body temperature equilibrium when lying on a western-style mattress. (see free sample chapter for more on this).

A skinny Thai sleeping on a bamboo mat will be able to put up with more.

It's a bit of a breeze you'll be needing

Contrary to what you might read in standard western books on thermal comfort, people in the tropics are not really troubled by a slight breeze, by which they mean 1 to 2 meters per second. But this vastly changes their perception of temperature as you can see here. Even temperatures up to 35 deg C can be accepted with a “slight breeze”. Right axis is temperature in Celsius, left is wind velocity, meters per second. Most people find the blue zones comfortable.

MODELLING THERMAL COMFORT FOR TROPICS USING FUZZY LOGIC

Henry Feriadi, Wong Nyuk Hien
Department of Building, School of Design and Environment National University of Singapore
4 Architecture Drive, Singapore 117566

It's a bit of a breeze you'll be needing

Contrary to what you might read in standard western books on thermal comfort, people in the tropics are not really troubled by a slight breeze, by which they mean 1 to 2 meters per second. But this vastly changes their perception of temperature as you can see here. Even temperatures up to 35 deg C can be accepted with a “slight breeze”. Right axis is temperature in Celsius, left is wind velocity, meters per second. Most people find the blue zones comfortable.

MODELLING THERMAL COMFORT FOR TROPICS USING FUZZY LOGIC

Henry Feriadi, Wong Nyuk Hien
Department of Building, School of Design and Environment National University of Singapore
4 Architecture Drive, Singapore 117566

Amazing Thailand, disaster floods and drought at the same time

Or is that the media love to wish bad things come on the happy life in our little Thai Shire? Or perhaps to use the place as a bogus locale of a coming apocalypse?

Amazing Thailand, disaster floods and drought at the same time

Or is that the media love to wish bad things come on the happy life in our little Thai Shire? Or perhaps to use the place as a bogus locale of a coming apocalypse?

Take a bath in front of the whole neighborhood

That's what my wife does in her Southern Thai village, doesn't think a thing of it, carrying on several conversations at once. The Thai bathe at least twice a day, and in all the years -- more than 50 -- I've been here, I've never smelled a single case of B.O., even on crowded buses in the heat of the afternoon in Bangkok. Remarkable how at the end of a hot day, everyone's shirt seems as freshly pressed as in the morning.

It was an olefactory shock to move from Thailand in 1963 to England, where many people bathed 
once a week. Standing in line at Sainsbury, you thought you were in the cheese department.

True tropical paradise: cool green and lush village morning today

True tropical paradise: cool green and lush village morning today in southern Thailand. Vs. dessicated hot Isaan last week. Temp this morning here in Nakorn Sri Thammarat only 28 v. 30 up north. Difference: year round rain here creates real jungle. View from my bedroom at wife's house.

Rubber price in drastic decline but have't heard a complaint yet. Most of their focus on kids.

A scene from Paul Gaughan

True tropical paradise: cool green and lush village morning today

True tropical paradise: cool green and lush village morning today in southern Thailand. Vs. dessicated hot Isaan last week. Temp this morning here in Nakorn Sri Thammarat only 28 v. 30 up north. Difference: year round rain here creates real jungle. View from my bedroom at wife's house.

Rubber price in drastic decline but have't heard a complaint yet. Most of their focus on kids.

A scene from Paul Gaughan

Mango shower

Yesterday the gathering 95F heat broke with a pleasant morning "mango shower", first of the year, which kept skies gray and temps down all day for pleasant neighborhood and canal-side walking in deep Ekamai. These light pre-season rains are common in SE Asia and India, said to help ripen the mangos. Sure enough, the market was loaded with the fruit, though the ones on our deck tree are still green. Our US visitors were delighted with the taste.

Bangkok hot season

Following life through Bangkok's hot season -- without air conditioning. Well, most of the time.

I will try to keep this blog growing from now until the crazy peak of the hot season in April.

View from my bedroom follows. See the little circle? We'll be talking more about that place, my traditional teak Thai house right in the middle of the city, a study in thermal contrast.

Invented in Thailand: world's best tropical hat

World's greatest hat for hot weather. Perfect shade and ventilation. Additional bonus factor: the layered structure of the hat provides an extra R value of about 0.5, so that significant temperature drop occurs between the outside and inside of the hat. Example: today with an air temp of 30, the outside of the hat had a temp of 38 (from solar heating) and the inside surface was 33. Would addition of a little foil on the underside of the hat improve things?

Invented in Thailand: world's best tropical hat

World's greatest hat for hot weather. Perfect shade and ventilation. Additional bonus factor: the layered structure of the hat provides an extra R value of about 0.5, so that significant temperature drop occurs between the outside and inside of the hat. Example: today with an air temp of 30, the outside of the hat had a temp of 38 (from solar heating) and the inside surface was 33. Would addition of a little foil on the underside of the hat improve things?

Everyone smiles here -- even in the heat!

Today we visit our village neighbors near our Korat farm. A hot  afternoon – temp 35°C (95 F) – and we find them sleeping in hammocks underneath their house. Can they be comfortable? Well they look and act comfortable and according to my CBE Berkeley thermal comfort calculator (you can google this great tool) the average person, dressed very lightly as they are, sedentary or sleeping, with surrounding surfaces at less than 30 deg C (86 F) and with a floor fan turned to medium, should be happy with a temperature of 32 to 34° (91 F). But the saving fact is that the ground temperature, because of its high thermal mass, is only 29 C (84 F) and they are enjoying radiant cooling from underneath their hammocks, which according to the ASHRAE-based tool, put them right smack in the middle of the comfort zone -- with no aircon. We don't need to bring in any race-based factors to explain this("these people are used to it") to reach this conclusion. But we do have to permit a certain afternoon laziness; everything is quiet in the village at this time of day.

Twenty thousand days at Don Muang

This graphic shows the average daily temp at Don Muang since 1951 (top to bottom). Courtesy of the Thai Meteorology Department. 

Values to left are dips in temp, values to right are hot days. The year markers (white horizontal lines) are set to Songram which as expected is close to the hottest day of the year.

For larger size of this graphic click on "20,000 days in Bangkok" in right sidebar. 

I have several ideas about this record.

1. Bangkok weather is more variable annually than I once expected. Perhaps this is true of Thai people too.

2. There is a very sight rising trend to temps at DM, maybe a degree over the whole sixty three year period. Urban heat island effect (heat-gathering effect of urban development) is certainly part of the reason for this, perhaps the full reason. Hence significant global warming is not apparent in this record.

3. Some apparent changes can probably be explained by the re-siting of the measurement point or changes in immediate surroundings including construction.

4. The small gap at the bottom is due to absence of records during 2011 flooding. The record stops mid 2013, I will add more later.

Where did hot poverty-stricken Thailand go?

Wandering mid day through the sparkling Srinakharinwirot University which seems as luxurious as Stanford. What happened to the Third World? Hard to believe people are protesting about anything. And Bangkok heat: where did that go? Most beautiful day I can recall in fifty years here, low 70's  all day. Thank you China for your air.

Global Warming in Bangkok? Take a second look

For years we have been seeing graphs like this one for Bangkok, showing how the city is going to get insufferably hot in the coming years becuse of CO2 induced global warming, with frightening rises in sea level. My village neighbor way up on the Korat plateau even asked me if he should be worried about the sea rising that high.

But wait a minute here... a few years back the Japanese researcher Taniguchi had been doing some careful measurements of ground temperatures over the years and he raises some questions about all of this.

For example in this graph he compares Bangkok temperatures at Don Muang airport -- the usual historical measurement spot -- with temperatures in Lopburi. Seems that the airport temps are rising, but not those in the countryside. Think about that for a minutes. Aren't airports where most temperatures showing "global warming" are measured?

Here is a satellite image of the ground surface temperature of Bangkok in 2009.

So the question is, is most of the alleged "global warming" in Thailand (and elsewhere?) really just urban heat island effects around old airports where temperatures are measured?