Climate expert says building codes affect temperatures in our homes, while desert areas have unique properties that make them colder in winter.
If you’ve ever been to Tunisia during winter months, you may have noticed that the same degrees of cold in the country somehow feel colder than in Europe, for instance.
“Outside you probably won’t notice a significant difference between, say, 15 degrees in Tunisia and 15 degrees in Europe. But when you go inside, you’ll feel it because our buildings, our homes, our apartments are not built to insulate us well from the cold temperatures,” climate expert Prof. Mohamed Ghannouchi tells Carthage Magazine.
“In Europe, the buildings are very well insulated, with central heating, so the cold remains outside. The windows are also well insulated, and often double paned, so that you have some air insulating between the two glass sheets. Even if it’s cold outside, that cold — or heat — doesn’t really penetrate,” he notes.
He says because of the lack of insulation, the warm air from a heater or cold air from an air conditioner leaks out through windows and under doors, making it necessary for more constant heating or cooling.
In cold winter or hot summer, Ghannouchi says, it’s the same inefficiency at play.
“It’s physics, if you’ve got a cold object and a hot object, the heat goes from the hot to the cold until they’re equal in temperature, and then there won’t be any transfer of heat anymore.
“In the winter, heat is leaving the home, going outside, and in the summer, the heat’s coming from outside and into the house, which means we have to use more air conditioning to get to the temperature that we’re interested in.”
Colder in the desert
Ghannouchi adds that cold may also feel colder in arid areas where the air is dry, like the Tataouine Desert.
Ordinarily, “Moisture in the air acts like a blanket, trapping some of that heat so it’s a little bit warmer, especially in winter,” he explains.
“In Tataouine, for instance, we don’t have that blanket, and all that heat leaves the surface at nighttime. In the summer [Tataouine] is much hotter [in the daytime], but at nighttime it’s much cooler there than in Tunis which is very humid and has lots of moisture.”
He says that water vapor may be the reason why it feels less cold in Europe, which boasts vast bodies of water, compared to certain places in Tunisia.
“The less water vapor you have, the more you feel the cold on your body because the air is colder. When you have water vapor all the way around you, it acts kind of like a blanket,” he adds.
Cracking the building code
Ghannouchi explains that construction of insulated buildings is complex and expensive, making it less of a priority for Tunisia where winters are relatively mild and brief.
“There are various building codes. Green construction is more expensive, but in the long term it saves you energy because you have to heat or cool your buildings much less. It would also save us on our electricity bills if we built better and had better insulation,” he notes.
When it comes to the summer, Ghannouchi explains that construction codes in Tunisia have not been keeping pace with climate change and rapidly rising temperatures in the region.
“Fifty years ago, the temperatures in Tunisia were slightly different, especially in the summer; it wasn’t as hot as it is now. Structures that were built back then were not built for extremely warm temperatures,” he says.
