Numerical simulation of urban impact on precipitation in Tokyo: How does urban temperature rise affect precipitation?

• Published in: Urban climate Vol. 23; pp. 8 - 35
• Main Authors: Seino, Naoko, Aoyagi, Toshinori, Tsuguti, Hiroshige
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.03.2018
• Subjects: Numerical simulation; Precipitation variability; Tokyo; Urban canopy scheme; Urban heat island; Urban impact on precipitation; Numerical simulation; Urban canopy scheme; Urban impact on precipitation; Tokyo; Precipitation variability; Urban heat island
• ISSN: 2212-0955; 2212-0955
• DOI: 10.1016/j.uclim.2016.11.007

This study explored how heat island intensification affects precipitation in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Numerical experiments were made for the month of August from 2006 to 2013 using the Non-Hydrostatic Model (NHM) with a horizontal grid interval of 2km and the Square Prism Urban Canopy (SPUC) scheme. We performed the experiments with two different specifications for the Tokyo area: the current highly urbanized surface conditions (CRNT experiment) and less urbanized conditions (MDUB experiment). The simulation results suggest that the mean monthly precipitation in the central Tokyo area was approximately 10% larger in the CRNT experiment than in the MDUB experiment, associated with a mean temperature rise of as much as 1°C. We also examined the modification of daily precipitation characteristics in the two experiments. The CRNT experiment generally yielded larger amounts of area-maximum precipitation in the urban domain; however, differences between the experiments in daily precipitation varied among cases. Composite analysis was performed to investigate the processes associated with the differences in simulated precipitation. We found that in afternoon rainfall cases without preceding precipitation, a thermally induced change in circulation, particularly enhanced ascending motion, played an important role in the precipitation increase in the CRNT experiment. •Impact of urban temperature rise on precipitation is simulated using NHM and SPUC.•Highly urbanized and less urbanized conditions are compared in simulations for Tokyo.•1°C temperature rise in Tokyo can lead to 10% mean precipitation increase in August.•Similar precipitation increase in July and a weaker signal in February were found.•Thermally induced change in circulation plays a key role for rainfall enhancement.