Impact of Anthropogenic Heat on Urban Environment: A Case Study of Singapore with High-Resolution Gridded Data

• Published in: Atmosphere Vol. 14; no. 10; p. 1499
• Main Authors: Wang, Ao, Li, Xian-Xiang, Xin, Rui, Chew, Lup Wai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.10.2023
• Subjects: Air conditioning; Air temperature; Analysis; Anthropogenic factors; anthropogenic heat; Atmospheric temperature; Boundary layer height; Boundary layers; Breezes; built environment; Components; Energy consumption; Enthalpy; Environmental aspects; Heat; Heat flux; Heat transfer; High resolution; Human beings; Human influences; Humidity; Industrial buildings; Influence on nature; Land breezes; Land use; Metabolism; Mitigation; Overheating; Rain; Relative humidity; Roads & highways; sea/land breezes; Seasons; Sensible heat; Sensible heat flux; Sensible heat transfer; Spatial discrimination; Spatial resolution; Temperature; Temperature effects; Temperature rise; Temporal resolution; Urban areas; urban canopy model; Urban climates; Urban climatology; Urban environments; urban heat island; Urban heat islands; Urban land use; Weather; Wind; Wind speed; WRF model; Singapore
• DOI: 10.3390/atmos14101499
• ISSN: 2073-4433

Anthropogenic heat (AH) emissions have great impacts on urban climate. AH is usually spatially heterogeneous and depends on the urban land use type. Studies using high-resolution gridded data that can resolve spatially heterogeneous AH are still scarce. The present study uses AH data of a high spatial resolution of 200 m by 200 m and a temporal resolution of 1 h to investigate the impact of AH in Singapore in April 2016, particularly regarding the relative contribution of individual AH components. The WRF model coupled with a single-layer urban canopy model is employed. The WRF model can predict the 2-m air temperature and 2-m relative humidity with good agreement with the observation data, while the simulated 10-m wind speed has relatively large deviation from the observation data. The largest spatially averaged temperature increases caused by total AH (QF), AH from buildings (QB) and AH from traffic (QV) are 1.44 °C, 1.44 °C and 1.35 °C, respectively. The effects of AH on sensible heat flux and boundary layer height are largely consistent, with both QF and QB exhibiting significant effects at night, while the effects of QV are small. The effect of AH on the local circulations (sea and land breezes) in Singapore is small, while its effect on the urban heat island (UHI) circulations is more pronounced. Due to the UHI circulations, the sum of the effects on local temperatures caused by QB and QV may exceed that by QF in some areas. This finding can guide comprehensive mitigation measures of AH by not only focusing on land use type but also on the contribution of individual AH components, in order to ameliorate the impacts of urban overheating.