Abstract
Cities are the predominant places for human beings to settle down, thus becoming more vulnerable to extreme weather events aggravating phenomena like heat stress and decreasing air quality aroused by inner city pollution. The excessive warming of impervious surfaces and additional release of anthropogenic heat promotes urban heat island (UHI) formation. Human activities lead to an increase of emissions of air pollutants which in turn influences the chemical composition of urban air. In this study, the mesoscale chemical transport model WRF-Chem is used for the urban area of Stuttgart to simulate the effect of UHI mitigation strategies such as urban greening and high albedo materials on the concentration of primary and secondary pollutants.
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References
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Questioner: Prof. Builtjes
Question
Do you intend to take PM 10 into account in your future work?
Answer: In our study we observed a large negative bias between model and measurement which we cannot explain in detail yet. We have to figure out if the problem mainly lies in the model configuration or the selection of measurement data. Yes, we intend to discuss PM as well for future studies.
Questioner: Dr. Lenartz:
Question
What is the effect of solar panels on the albedo (and consequently on temperature and air quality)?
Answer:
We have not tested that special case, but I suppose the black surface of the solar panels could have a negative effect on urban temperature and heat island. With regard to the results of our study, the effect on primary pollutants however could be positive.
Questioner: Dr. Carissimo:
Question
On the slide where you compare the effect of different heat island mitigation measures there are areas of increased temperature?
Answer:
With regard to the albedo scenario, also buildings in the surrounding area are changed, that’s why the effect well extends to outer areas. With regard to the urban greening case, these dots are model errors.
Question
Your conclusion discusses only the effect at 8 pm. In early morning effects could be different?
Answer:
Yes, you are right. I have chosen to discuss this time step, because on the one hand I wanted to see the effect on the urban heat island which is more pronounced in the evening/night-time and on the other hand I wanted to look at a time of the day, where most of the urban population is still active.
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Fallmann, J., Forkel, R., Emeis, S. (2016). Cool Cities—Clean Cities? Secondary Impacts of Urban Heat Island Mitigation Strategies on Urban Air Quality. In: Steyn, D., Chaumerliac, N. (eds) Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXIV. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24478-5_61
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24478-5_61
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