Bangkok 's lovely breezes

Preparing now to take on the grim subject that in my experience leads to the greatest thermal suffering and disappointment, namely the lack of ventilation/insulation of enclosed subroof spaces (ie "attic" spaces), we need to tarry a bit blathering on some about the happy existence of tropical breezes here in Thailand.

First, some data:

Bangkok is fortunate in this regard, enjoying a hot season breeze that typically ranges from 1 to 2 meters per second (4 to 8 km/hr), as you can see from both the annual history for 2005-2006 at Don Muang, and also from the history of the last few days. (Both of these graphs are readily available from Weather Underground)

I include the temperature history on both graphs because it is quite lovely if you are a scientifically oriented person to sit and look at the season pass in this little data-world, the moment of pneumatic confusion followed by the decisive reassertion of the wind from south to north at the end of the rainy season, etcetera. Christians will rejoice at the miraculous plunge of the dew point to create, as best as Thailand can do, a starry windless Christmas eve, others will doubtless enjoy finding their own divine interventions, Tuesday's predawn tussle between Boreas and Notus, and so on.

But let's stop fooling around here, what we want is comfort, and we rejoice that Bangkok fairly consistently delivers a breeze of about 8 km/hr, which is about 2 meters per second, which you can compare with the general standards used as follows:

0.5 m/s: pleasant breeze. Lowers apparent temperature by about 3 degrees C (mainly by improving convective transfer from body to air)

1.0 m/s: desirable indoor upper limit in USA, according to various authorities in that country. Enough to feel on face, move hair and papers slightly.

2.0 m/s: further cooling effect, but felt as unpleasant or gusty by fussy people. Recommended as permissive upper limit for indoor by tropophiles.

It would appear, then, that if a substantial portion of wind can be brought into the indoors, our thermal felicity will be well served. So our general aim here is to put this windy energy to work in improving our indoor environment, which we propose to do in the next chapter.