“Females are at risk of being over-chilled by office air-conditioning,” the scientists study say.

The air conditioned offices are likely to reduce the metabolic rate of woman. This generally makes them uncomfortable under the ACs. 

After the study, it is found out that, comparatively, a woman requires less cooling in summer than men.

Study authors, Dr Boris Kingma and Professor Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, from Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change: "Thermal comfort models need to adjust the current metabolic standard by including the actual values for females."

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Solution for controlling the metabolic rate

"Consequently, thermal comfort models need either to be recalibrated or enhanced using a biophysical approach," they stated.

"This in turn will allow for better predictions of building energy consumption, by reducing the bias on thermal comfort of sub-populations and individuals."

From a research conducted 5 decades ago, the current air-conditioning standards are derived, that assessed the "thermal comfort" of 1300 female employees.

The metabolic rates of men and women differ so much that, the standard model used to set indoor temperatures may overestimate up to 35 percent, the heat generated by a sitting woman. It is to be noted that, metabolic rate will also be lowered with the increasing age.

By Phani