Study of Human Bioclimatic Regions from a Standpoint of Geography: A Critical Review

Abstract

Study of physical bioclimatology has a long history as BUETTNER (1962) as well as LANDSBERG (1972) pointed out. In the early days the term “Climate” sometimes meant bioclimatology as may be gathered from A. v. HUMBOLDT's statement (1845). Since then, human bioclimate has been studied in various sciences, for example, medical cience, human biology, sanitary science, applied meteorology, applied climatology and so on. Undoubtedly many results have been obtained in these sciences regarding bioclimatic studies; however, either study of regionality or regional structures of human bioclimatic characteristics have not been a subject of great interest.
In geography or climageography, one of the most important traditional subjects is to classify climates and on the basis of such a system to divide climatic regions. However, to my regret, in the field of geography itself, the study of bioclimatic regions developed too late. Excepting TAYLOR'S famous work (1916), few research results were obtained before the 1930' regarding bioclimatic regions.
It may be a remarkable fact that Section Geographie coloniale was set up on the occasion of the 15 th International Geographical Congress in Amsterdam in 1938, and several papers on acclimatization for the white race in the Tropics were presented. The study of acclimatization as well as human bioclimatology developed rapidly thereafter in the field of geography. It should be pointed out that the 15 th IGC was the turning point to develop the study of bioclimatology as well as human bioclimatic regions in the field of geography.
As one of the key subjects, the study of sultry boundaries and climatic divisions on the basis of distribution of sultriness have been performed (MARNER, 1940; SCHARLAU, 1950, 1952; SCHULZE, 1956; HAVLIK, 1976; DOMROS, 1981; TILLEY, 1988 and so on). The sultry zones of the world (SCHARLAU, 1952) and vertical zonation of the bioclimatic structures, especially of the upper boundary of the distribution of sultriness in the mountainous regions in the Tropics and others may be one of the most remarkable results (SCHARLAU, 1952; Domras, 1981 and so on).
Cooling power is also a very suggestive index regarding bioclimatic divisions. World maps of distribution of the Hill's cooling power in January and July performed by LAUSCHER (1951) may be one of the earliest results on bioclimatic regionality on the global scale.
GREGORCZUK's work (1968) of world bioclimatic regions was performed on the basis of the distribution of air enthalpy grade which was introduced by BRAZOL (1954) as a scale of sensation of anthropological climates.
Climatic systems by TERJUNG (1966, 1967, 1968) has been established on the basis of comfort indexes as well as wind effect indexes and bioclimatic divisions of the USA as well the world performed on the basis of his climatic systems should make it possible to clarfy regional structures of bioclimatic characteristics.
One of the very interesting results is JUSATZ's work (1962) on the distribution of epidemic diseases as an effective index for bioclimatic classification, and his consideration of the relationship between spinal meningitis and the harmattan in Central Africa should be a representative result obtained in the field of not only medical geography but also bioclimatology.
Research on the requirement of clothing as a index of human bioclimates and establishment of bioclimatic regions of the world has broken new ground in the study of bioclimatic regions (LANDSBERG, 1954; LEE et al., 1949; ALCIEMS et al., 1976, 1979, 1981, and so on).
In the present paper the author comments mainly on studies of bioclimatic regions on a global scale. However, it should be of utmost importance to develop studies of bioclimatic regions on meso- as well as on microclimatic scales. DAMMANN's work (1958, 1964) should be a good example.