What Determines the Feels Like Temperature?

Under the combined effect of air temperature, humidity, and wind, the degree of hot and cold that the human body feels is also called somatosensory temperature.

Under the combined effect of air temperature, humidity, and wind, the degree of hot and cold that the human body feels is also called somatosensory temperature.

Chinese name

Feel the temperature

Foreign name

sensibletemperature

Related terms

Comfortable temperature

Subject branch

Applied meteorology

Sensory temperature description

Perceived temperature is a kind of hot and cold abstract sensation of air. It has a direct relationship with air temperature, but the temperature can't be used as the only indicator to infer human's hot and cold feeling. It is affected by air humidity and wind speed. There is a big difference from the temperature. For example, people don't feel very cold on a clear winter day with very low temperature; in the summer before the thunder shower, although the temperature is not very high, people feel sultry. ^[1]

Factors that affect temperature

Air temperature, humidity, and wind speed are the three most important aspects affecting sensory temperature ^[2] . In addition, the perceived temperature is also affected by the color of the clothes. The principle of the three important influence factors of sensory temperature is as follows:

(1) Temperature: It is the most sensitive factor that the human body feels. Generally, when the temperature is too high or too low, people will achieve balance by evaporating heat or keeping warm to prevent heat emission. If the temperature is higher than the temperature of the human body, the air will heat the human body, making the body feel hot, and the body will maintain heat balance by sweating; if the temperature is lower than the temperature of the human body, the body will reduce the heat emission by increasing clothing. .

(2) Humidity: It determines the efficiency of the sweat glands of the human body to radiate heat to the outside to dissipate heat. Sweat molecules leave the surface of the sweat to become water vapor molecules. If the human body is in a relatively static environment, these water vapor molecules will stay on the human skin Nearby, as the water vapor is getting closer to its maximum capacity, the sweat will evaporate more and more slowly, and the human body will feel hot. The higher the temperature, the greater the effect of humidity on the perceived temperature. When the humidity is high, the skin is moist, and the air evaporates slowly, the heat dissipation effect is poor, and the temperature is higher. People often say "the heat is at three volts", but climate data show that the highest temperature in many areas does not appear at three volts, but people feel that three volts are the hottest, which is the effect of humidity.

(3) Wind: It plays the role of enhancing the convective heat transfer of the human body and accelerating air evaporation. When the temperature is higher than the skin temperature, the wind heats the human body due to convective heat transfer on the one hand, and also accelerates evaporation on the other hand. The heat dissipation efficiency of the human body is improved, so in the summer, when a hot wind blows, the human body feels dry and hot, and also has a refreshing feeling. Within a certain range, the greater the wind speed, the faster the human body will dissipate heat.

Wind speed and humidity often affect the human body's perceived temperature. If the humidity is high and the wind speed is small, the perceived temperature will be much higher than the actual temperature. Therefore, when people pay attention to the weather forecast, they should not only pay attention to the temperature, but also need to consider the humidity and wind speed of the air.