Ioanna Kaza, "Analysis and trends of heating and cooling degree days in the Mediterranean region", Diploma Work, School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece, 2021
https://doi.org/10.26233/heallink.tuc.89059
Global climate change is one of the most crucial issues of contemporary life as it has important impacts on many aspects of human life, one of which is the energy sector. This research focuses on a very responsive to climate change area, the Mediterranean, and attempts to analyze the energy demand trends from 1970 through 2100, processing not only historical temperature records but future simulations from Regional Climate Models concerning seven Mediterranean cities of different sizes and geographical characteristics. Cooling degree days (CDD) and heating degree days (HDD) have been estimated in order to point out the trends in the amount of energy demands. The research has shown a statistically significant decrease in heating demands at all cities, while cooling demands are increasing at rates reaching up to 64 degrees per decade. On the other hand, future simulations suggest a remarkable expansion of the duration of the cooling demands period, at rates of 5 to 6 days per decade till the end of the century. At the same time, the duration of heating demands period presents a negative trend, at rates between -4 to -7 days per decade.