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Human Heat Workflow

Current first-pass human heat support uses Humidex through xclim.

This is intentionally narrower than full occupational or outdoor-thermal assessment workflows.

Phase 1 choice

Selected metric: - humidex

Deferred: - WBGT - UTCI - higher-fidelity occupational heat workflows

Why humidex first

  • needs only temperature plus humidity or dewpoint
  • available in current toolkit xclim stack
  • matches current source coverage better than WBGT or UTCI
  • can work on some future nex_gddp runs when hurs is available

Why not WBGT first

WBGT is important, but current toolkit does not yet have coherent operational support for broader wind / radiation treatment across intended historical and future workflows.

Why not UTCI first

UTCI is more physically rich, but first-pass package support is constrained by input requirements: - temperature - humidity - wind - mean radiant temperature or radiation terms

Current package can support those inputs for some historical sources, but not coherently across intended future workflows.

Source support

Strong first-pass support: - agera_5 - nasa_power - ghcn_daily when humidity exists - gsod when humidity exists - custom_station when humidity or dewpoint exists - paired - when temperature-side partner carries humidity or dewpoint - auto - when chosen companion-temperature path carries humidity or dewpoint

Conditional support: - nex_gddp - only when Earth Engine hurs exists for selected model / scenario / period

Not currently suitable: - era_5 - current runtime path does not expose operational humidity support clearly - chirps_v2 - chirps_v3_daily_rnl - imerg - tamsat - chirts

Current helper surface

Python helpers: - climate_toolkit.climatology.build_human_heat_source_bundle - climate_toolkit.climatology.compute_daily_humidex - climate_toolkit.climatology.summarize_humidex_period - climate_toolkit.climatology.describe_human_heat_method - climate_toolkit.climatology.describe_human_heat_source_support

Package propagation: - climate_statistics - adds optional human_heat_stress block when humidity or dewpoint-backed inputs exist - compare_periods - diffs human_heat_stress metrics when both baseline and focal windows support humidex - calculate_hazards - adds generic humidex screening output and day-count summaries when humidity-backed inputs exist

Current limits

  • hazard classes are generic humidex screening classes, not full occupational or medical heat guidance
  • no claim that humidex is globally best human heat metric

Likely next steps

  1. decide whether phase 2 uses:
  2. WBGT
  3. UTCI
  4. some combination by source capability
  5. add explicit method notes and source guardrails so users do not confuse generic humidex screening with full WBGT-style exposure assessment