On the potential of building adaptation measures to counterbalance the impact of climatic change in the tropics Shamila Haddad a,⇑ , Adrian Barker b , Junjing Yang c , Devi Ilamathy Mohan Kumar c , Samira Garshasbi a , Riccardo Paolini a , Mattheos Santamouris a,d a Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia b ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia c National University of Singapore, Singapore d Anita Lawrence Chair in High Performance Architecture, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia article info Article history: Received 7 July 2020 Revised 4 September 2020 Accepted 17 September 2020 Available online 22 September 2020 Keywords: Global climate change Building adaptation Survivability Cooling energy use abstract Climate change is one of the most significant environmental issues facing communities, while poor con- struction and absence of effective air-conditioning (AC) predominantly cause indoor overheating. Although AC may help meeting indoor comfort, it increases the vulnerability of low-income residents, triggers large energy consumption, and generates anthropogenic heat, which worsens heat stress out- door. The capacity of buildings to maintain comfortable thermal conditions without mechanical cooling is the key factor protecting occupants against the rising temperature. Residents of Darwin, Australia, will be largely affected by increasing temperature where the annual peak ambient temperature may increase by 7.4 °C in 2060, while the number of hours above 30 °C will rise by 70%. Based on regional climate mod- elling for the Australian area and using a building energy simulation platform, we computed that by 2060 the indoor air temperature in a typical residential building may exceed 30 °C for over 4000 h under free- floating condition, with a peak daytime and night-time temperatures of 39 °C and 36.5 °C, respectively. The sensible thermal energy need for cooling per unit area under thermostatically controlled condition will increase from the current level of 110.7 kWh/m 2 to 196.8 kWh/m 2 in 2060. Different adaptation tech- niques when applied to the typical residential building yield to the peak indoor air temperature drop by 3.3–12 °C, and cooling energy needs reductions by 23.5–195.3 kWh/m 2 (12–99.7%) for low, medium, and high retrofit buildings compared to the typical residential building in 2060. Our study indicates that improved building quality is necessary to enhance survivability and energy efficiency in Darwin consid- ering the role of building adaptation measures to counterbalance the impacts of global warming. Ó 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Global climate change is a growing concern worldwide for the 21st century with significant impacts at local and regional scale. The continuous and complex relationship between built environ- ment and changing climate will have a growing impact on the energy efficiency and future survivability of residential buildings. Global climate models (GCMs) provide a basis for creating climate projections, which are necessarily important for informing climate change adaptation [1,2]. However, to produce high-resolution cli- mate projections suitable for use in climate change impact and adaptation assessment, dynamic downscaling with regional cli- mate models (RCMs) is used to address the finer temporal and spa- tial resolution needed for climate projections at regional scale [3] and better represent local extreme events [4]. In Australia, New South Wales / Australian Capital Territory Regional Climate Model- ling (NARCliM) project [2] delivers climate change projections and provides downscaling of global climate models. Projected population growth and urbanization are shown to have synergies with global warming and local climate change [5– 7]. Further, urban morphology and physical characteristics, and anthropogenic heat are contributing factors to the urban climate [8,9], which may exacerbate the impacts of global warming. According to the fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report [10], surface temperature will rise, and heat wave risk will increase with higher frequency and longer duration over most land areas during the 21st century. The severity and scale of recent fires in Australia highlight human-induced climate change, which increased the risk of fire season by at least 30% [11]. Higher urban https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2020.110494 0378-7788/Ó 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: s.haddad@unsw.edu.au (S. Haddad). Energy & Buildings 229 (2020) 110494 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Energy & Buildings journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enb