Abstract
Due to significant cooling requirements, urban buildings in hot climatic regions require careful analysis of Urban Heat Island (UHI) and Urban Wind Sheltering (UWS) effects for accurate design of cooling systems. Most studies considered microclimatic data from a nearby weather station, estimated by remote sensing or CFD simulation, all of which carry numerous variables and could yield erroneous results. The most reliable source would be to use data directly measured by weather stations in the study area. To this end, this study investigates the UHI and UWS effects in Qatar based on the comparative analysis of hourly microclimatic data obtained from two urban weather stations in Lusail City and Education City and five established airport weather stations across Qatar for the entirety of 2022. From analyzing the difference in temperature (UHI intensity) and wind speed (UWS intensity) of urban and rural areas, a clear increase in temperature and a sharp decrease in wind speed is observed in both studied urban areas. According to the results, the highest UHI intensity recorded was 16.8°C on the 16th of May (summer) at 1 pm, and the UWS intensity was −65.9 m/s on the 17th of March (winter) at 4 pm.