Li, Dan;
Sun, Ting;
Yang, Jiachuan;
Zhang, Ning;
Vahmani, Pouya;
Jones, Andrew;
(2024)
Structural Uncertainty in the Sensitivity of Urban Temperatures to Anthropogenic Heat Flux.
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
, 16
(10)
, Article e2024MS004431. 10.1029/2024ms004431.
Preview |
Text
J Adv Model Earth Syst - 2024 - Li - Structural Uncertainty in the Sensitivity of Urban Temperatures to Anthropogenic Heat.pdf - Published Version Download (5MB) | Preview |
Abstract
One key source of uncertainty for weather and climate models is structural uncertainty arising from the fact that these models must simplify or approximate complex physical, chemical, and biological processes that occur in the real world. However, structural uncertainty is rarely examined in the context of simulated effects of anthropogenic heat flux in cities. Using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model coupled with a single‐layer urban canopy model, it is found that the sensitivity of urban canopy air temperature to anthropogenic heat flux can differ by an order of magnitude depending on how anthropogenic heat flux is released to the urban environment. Moreover, varying model structures through changing the treatment of roof‐air interaction and the parameterization of convective heat transfer between the canopy air and the atmosphere can affect the sensitivity of urban canopy air temperature by a factor of 4. Urban surface temperature and 2‐m air temperature are less sensitive to the methods of anthropogenic heat flux release and the examined model structural variants than urban canopy air temperature, but their sensitivities to anthropogenic heat flux can still vary by as much as a factor of 4 for surface temperature and 2 for 2‐m air temperature. Our study recommends using temperature sensitivity instead of temperature response to understand how various physical processes (and their representations in numerical models) modulate the simulated effects of anthropogenic heat flux.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Structural Uncertainty in the Sensitivity of Urban Temperatures to Anthropogenic Heat Flux |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1029/2024ms004431 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2024ms004431 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Geophysical Union. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10198833 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
