Future Climate Change Impact on Urban Heat Island in Two Mediterranean Cities Based on High-Resolution Regional Climate Simulations

Atmosphere

Giampietro Casasanta¹  Stefania Argentini¹  Paraskevi Tzoumaka²  Apostolos Kelessis²  Francesca de’Donato³  Prodromos Zanis⁴  Serafim Kontos⁵  Stavros Ch. Keppas⁵  Anastasia Poupkou⁵  Dimitrios Melas⁵  Sofia Papadogiannaki⁵  Daphne Parliari⁵ 

[1] CNR-ISAC—Italian National Research Council, Institute of Atmospheric Science and Climate, via Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133 Rome, Italy;Department of Environment, Municipality of Thessaloniki, Kleanthous 18, 54642 Thessaloniki, Greece;Department of Epidemiology, Regional Health Authority, 00147 Rome, Italy;Department of Meteorology and Climatology, School of Geology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece;Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, School of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece;

关键词: Urban Heat Island;    WRF;    heat stress;    future projections;    climate change;    discomfort index;   

DOI  :  10.3390/atmos12070884

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The Mediterranean is recognized among the most responsive regions to climate change, with annual temperatures projected to increase by 1–5 °C until 2100. Large cities may experience an additional stress discomfort due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. In the present study, the WRF-ARW numerical weather prediction model was used to investigate the climate change impact on UHI for two Mediterranean cities, Rome and Thessaloniki. For this purpose, three 5-year time-slice simulations were conducted (2006–2010, 2046–2050, 2096–2100) under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 emission scenario, with a spatial resolution of 2 km. In order to comprehensively investigate the urban microclimate, we analyze future simulation data across sections crossing urban/non-urban areas, and after grouping them into three classes depending on the location of the grid cells. The urban areas of both cities present increased average minimum temperature (T_min) in winter/summer compared to other rural areas, with an UHI of ~+1.5–3 °C on average at night/early morning. Considering UHI under future climate change, we found no significant variations (~±0.2 °C). Finally, we found that the numbers of days with T_min ≥ 20 °C will mostly increase in urban coastal areas until 2100, while the largest increase of minimum Discomfort Index (DI_min) is expected in urban low-ground areas.

【 授权许可】

Unknown