The Universal Thermal Climate Index UTCI in Operational Use

The Universal Thermal Climate Index UTCI provides an assessment of the outdoor thermal environment in bio-meteorological applications based on the equivalence of the dynamic physiological response predicted by a model of human thermoregulation, which was coupled with a state-of-the-art clothing model. The operational procedure, which is available as software from the UTCI website (www.utci.org), showed plausible responses to the influence of humidity and heat radiation in the heat, as well as to wind speed in the cold and was in good agreement with the assessment of ergonomics standards concerned with the thermal environment. This suggests that in this regard UTCI may be universally useable in the research and in the major areas of application of human biometeorology.