ON THE VARIABILITY OF COOLING DEGREE-DAYS IN AN URBAN-ENVIRONMENT - APPLICATION TO ATHENS, GREECE

Knowledge of cooling degree-days is necessary in order to estimate the cooling requirements of buildings in a place, which characterize the overall temperature conditions during the summer period. Exact calcula tion of the cooling degree-days requires a long time series of hourly temperature. data from representative meteorological stations. In orde r to study the variability of the ambient temperature distribution in an urban environment, and the representativeness of a given station, c ooling degree-days for three different meteorological stations located in the major Athens area have been calculated. An important spatial a nd temporal variability has been found. Problems related to the increa se of the ambient temperature during the last 30 years are also studie d. Finally, the accuracy of simplified methods to calculate the coolin g degree-hours in a place is examined.