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CT: When selecting small-scale renewable energy devices, the microclimate should be an important consideration. Small differences, perhaps magnified by extreme conditions, accumulate over the year and can significantly affect the economics of an installation. This makes it desirable to acquire sufficient weather data at a planning stage to enable the microclimate to be adequately modelled. Variation in wind and temperature is shown to exist even in a seemingly homogeneous region through case study which examines the effect of a particular storm event in the Western Isles of Scotland on 11 and 12 January 2005, and also assesses the annual variation in wind energy and temperature across the same region. Other research applications that rely on data repeatability rather than accuracy are also considered.

S: SD – http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148107003199 (last access: 29 November 2016)

N: 1. It comes from the word-forming element “micro-” (meaning “small, microscopic; magnifying; one millionth,” from Latinized comb. form of Greek mikros “small, little, petty, trivial, slight”) and the word “climate” (from Greek klima “region, zone”).
2. The climate of a very small or restricted area, or of the immediate surroundings of any individual or object of interest, especially as it differs from the climate generally.
3. Temperature, absolute and relative humidity, aeration, insolation, etc., which prevail at various levels, are comprised … under the term “microclimate”.
4. To provide a more accurate prediction of building energy consumption, it is necessary to take into account the influence of the microclimate around a building establishing through the interaction with other buildings or the natural environment. This paper presents a method for the quantitative assessment of building performance under any given urban context by linking the urban microclimate model ENVI-met to the building energy simulation (BES) program EnergyPlus. The full microclimatic factors such as solar radiation, thermal radiation, outdoor air temperature, humidity, and wind speed have been considered in the proposed scheme.
5. In the field of Meteorology: Climatic structure of the air space which extends from the very surface of the earth to a height where the effects of the immediate character of the underlying surface no longer can be distinguished from the general local climate.
6. The medical dictionary provides another definition:

• microclimate is the temperature, humidity, pH and air movement at a particular level, usually an interface between two systems, e.g. ground and air, skin and air.

S: 1. OED – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=microclimate (last access:25 November 2016). 2 & 3. TERMIUM PLUS – http://goo.gl/DP84nZ (last access: 30 November 2016). 3. 4. SCINET – http://www.scientific.net/AMM.121-126.2860 (last access:25 November 2016). 5. IMV – International Meteorological Vocabulary, WMO – No. 182 (last access: 25 November 2016 ). 6. MEDICALDICT – http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/microclimate (last access: 25 November 2016).

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CR: ecology