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Impact of anthropogenic heat release on regional climate in three vast urban agglomerations in China

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Abstract

We simulated the impact of anthropogenic heat release (AHR) on the regional climate in three vast city agglomerations in China using the Weather Research and Forecasting model with nested high-resolution modeling. Based on energy consumption and high-quality land use data, we designed two scenarios to represent no-AHR and current-AHR conditions. By comparing the results of the two numerical experiments, changes of surface air temperature and precipitation due to AHR were quantified and analyzed. We concluded that AHR increases the temperature in these urbanized areas by about 0.5°C—1°C, and this increase is more pronounced in winter than in other seasons. The inclusion of AHR enhances the convergence of water vapor over urbanized areas. Together with the warming of the lower troposphere and the enhancement of ascending motions caused by AHR, the average convective available potential energy in urbanized areas is increased. Rainfall amounts in summer over urbanized areas are likely to increase and regional precipitation patterns to be altered to some extent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment Research for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Jinming Feng, Jun Wang & Zhongwei Yan

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Jun Wang

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  1. Jinming Feng
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  2. Jun Wang
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  3. Zhongwei Yan
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Correspondence to Jun Wang.

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Feng, J., Wang, J. & Yan, Z. Impact of anthropogenic heat release on regional climate in three vast urban agglomerations in China. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 31, 363–373 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-013-3041-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-013-3041-z

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