Thermal Sciences

Near-surface atmospheric physics, from energy balance to human heat exposure.

The near-surface atmosphere is where incoming solar energy is absorbed, re-radiated, and traded with the ground through turbulence and evaporation; that balance sets the surface temperature and the daily cycle of heat and moisture. Describing it means a connected chain of calculations: the state of the air (temperature, humidity, wind, pressure), the radiation that powers the exchange, the surface fluxes, and the energy balance that ties them together. A step further, the same conditions set the heat a person is subjected to outdoors, which thermal indices summarize.

Each package implements these relationships straight from their published sources, under one set of conventions: pressure in kilopascals, temperatures in the user’s chosen unit, and a single sign convention for the energy balance. Every function names the equation it uses and shows a worked example, and it accepts NumPy arrays as readily as single values.

• atmoflux — a NumPy-based Python library for atmospheric and surface-energy flux calculations, spanning the atmospheric state, radiation, surface fluxes and energy balance, and shared utilities. Every public function validates its inputs and states the equation it implements, with NumPy its only runtime dependency. Fully documented and available on PyPI.
• thermadex — thermal indices for outdoor human thermal comfort and heat-stress assessment, built on the same atmospheric inputs atmoflux produces: temperature, humidity, wind, and radiation combined into the measures used to gauge heat load on the body. Its user guide will join this area once the first release is published.

Atmoflux is the foundation layer. The thermal indices that build on this atmospheric groundwork are in development and will join this area as they reach the same standard of documentation and testing.