Weather and climate are important natural resources for tourism and recreation, although sometimes they can make outdoor leisure activities less satisfying or even impossible. The aim of this work was to determine weather perception seasonal variability of people staying outdoors in urban environment for tourism and recreation, as well as to determine if personal factors influence estimation of recreationist actual biometeorological conditions and personal expectations towards weather elements. To investigate how human thermal sensations vary upon meteorological conditions typical for temperate climate, weather perception field researches were conducted in Warsaw (Poland) in all seasons. Urban recreationists’ preference for slightly warm thermal conditions, sunny, windless and cloudless weather, were identified as well as PET values considered to be optimal for sightseeing were defined between 27.3 and 31.7 °C. The results confirmed existence of phenomena called alliesthesia, which manifested in divergent thermal perception of comparable biometeorological conditions in transitional seasons. The results suggest that recreationist thermal sensations differed from other interviewees’ responses and were affected not only by physiological processes but they were also conditioned by psychological factors (i.e. attitude, expectations). Significant impact of respondents’ place of origin and its climate on creating thermal sensations and preferences was observed. Sex and age influence thermal preferences, whereas state of acclimatization is related with thermal sensations to some point.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00484-016-1220-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

In order to assess the influence of atmospheric conditions and particulate matter (PM) on the seasonally varying incidence of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) in the capital of Poland—Warsaw, we analysed time series of ILI reported for the about 1.75 million residents in total and for different age groups in 288 approximately weekly periods, covering 6 years 2013–2018. Using Poisson regression, we predicted ILI by the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) as biometeorological indicator, and by PM2.5 and PM10, respectively, as air quality measures accounting for lagged effects spanning up to 3 weeks. Excess ILI incidence after adjusting for seasonal and annual trends was calculated by fitting generalized additive models. ILI morbidity increased with rising PM concentrations, for both PM2.5 and PM10, and with cooler atmospheric conditions as indicated by decreasing UTCI. While the PM effect focused on the actual reporting period, the atmospheric influence exhibited a more evenly distributed lagged effect pattern over the considered 3-week period. Though ILI incidence adjusted for population size significantly declined with age, age did not significantly modify the effect sizes of both PM and UTCI. These findings contribute to better understanding environmental conditionings of influenza seasonality in a temperate climate. This will be beneficial to forecasting future dynamics of ILI and to planning clinical and public health resources under climate change scenarios.

The assessment of biometeorological conditions for tourism and recreational purposes is usually based around fundamental meteorological data, climate-tourism indices or biometeorological indices. Specific methods for investigating the sensible climate in the context of urban tourism had not been devised hitherto, but the present paper offers results of an assessment of the bioclimate of the Polish capital city, Warsaw, from the point of view of tourism and recreation, using the UTCI and PET indices. Values for these indices are then compared with thermal sensation votes cast by tourists in the course of leisure activities in Warsaw's Old Town area. This validation revealed that, while weather perception does not only depend on meteorological factors, usage of UTCI is an appropriate approach to the study of the bioclimate of urban areas for tourism and recreation purposes.

This study was designed to explore the impact of meteorological factors (air temperature, relative and absolute humidity, wind, cloudiness and precipitation) on influenza morbidity in four selected big cities in Poland – Cracow, Poznań, Warsaw and Wrocław. Atmospheric data obtained from four meteorological stations spread over six years (2013‑2018) were compared to influenza-like illnesses (ILI) reports, obtained from the Voivodship Units of the State Sanitary Inspection for the same locations and period. Data were analysed using Spearman correlation and negative binomial regressions to capture the nonlinear relationship between exposure to environmental conditions and influenza morbidity. Our study found a strong negative association of absolute air humidity with influenza infections (RR = 0.738) and positive relationship with minimal temperature (RR = 1.148). The effect of wind speed, cloudiness and precipitation on ILI was less evident. Proposed model is valid for all age groups in Polish cities, but suits the best to elderly citizens (65+). The model is also appropriate for different seasons, however only absolute humidity, minimal temperature and wind speed are considered significant variables all year round. Furthermore, we observed 6 to 9-days delay between particular adverse weather conditions and ILI morbidity increase, as 1-week lag model proved to have the highest predictive power (AIC = 8644.97). Although meteorological variables have statistically significant contribution to explain influenza morbidity, there are also other non-climatic factors, that can possibly influence the seasonality and complexity of influenza epidemiology in Polish cities.

Raport z realizacji działania naukowego o nr 2021/05/X/ST10/00738 finansowanego ze środków Narodowego Centrum Nauki.