A man stands in workwear in front of an orange wall outside, on concrete. He has his head in his hands and his hunched over his knees.

Mapping the thermodynamic burden of outdoor thermal stress across Australian climate zones

Discover how Australia's diverse climates shape the way our bodies experience heat and cold. Drawing on 46 years of weather data, this seminar explores why similar conditions can create very different levels of thermal stress, offering new insights to support climate adaptation, workplace safety and weather-warning systems across the country.

schedule Date & time
7 Oct 2026 11:00am - 7 Oct 2026 11:45am
person Speaker
Oluwafemi Adeyeri

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Description

Heat and cold do not affect people in the same way everywhere. Australia’s tropical, arid, temperate and Mediterranean climates expose the body to different combinations of temperature, humidity, wind and sunlight. Common measures can show how often stressful conditions occur, but they do not fully explain how hard the body must work to maintain a safe internal temperature. This project examines thermal stress across Australia using 46 years of detailed weather data from 1979 to 2024. It combines the Universal Thermal Climate Index, which describes how outdoor conditions affect the human body, with human-body exergy analysis, which estimates the thermodynamic burden of maintaining heat balance. The study also investigates how different heat-exchange processes, including sweating, radiation, airflow and metabolism, shape this burden in different regions. Weather-pattern classification and explainable machine learning are used to identify the broader atmospheric conditions associated with heat and cold stress. In this seminar, Femi will explain why places with similar numbers of stressful days may place very different demands on the body, and why long-lasting exposure does not necessarily coincide with the greatest thermodynamic burden. The broader aim is to support more locally appropriate weather warnings, workplace guidance and future climate-adaptation planning across Australia.

About the speaker

Oluwafemi Adeyeri is a Research Fellow in the Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather, based at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at Australian National University. His research focuses on identifying high-impact weather systems that result in adverse health effects and their distribution across Australia. Previously, Oluwafemi investigated the implications of climate extremes on human thermal comfort, energy demands, and water resources. His research achievements have been recognised with multiple prestigious fellowships and awards, including CityUHK’s Outstanding Researcher Award (2023-2025), the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) Fellowship (2020-2022), the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Fellowship (2019), the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Fellowship (2018), the Netherlands Fellowship (NFP, 2017), and the German Federal Ministry of Education Fellowship (BMBF, 2016-2019).

Location

Fenner Seminar Room