Modeling the effect of climate change in historic buildings at several scale levels

Within the new EU project ‘Climate for Culture’ researchers are investigating climate change impacts on UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Simulation results are expected to give information on the possible impact of climate change on the built cultural heritage and its indoor environment. This paper presents the current and new modeling approaches necessary for obtaining the required simulation results, by: Firstly, providing an overview of the current state of the art on the modeling of historic buildings at several scales using scientific computational software. Secondly, presenting an approach on how to incorporate the effect of climate change into the building models. Thirdly, providing a preliminary method for up-scaling building spatial level models onto a continental level. The latter provides maps that visualize the impact of external climate change on indoor climates of similar buildings spread over Europe.