Responses of urban heat island in Atlanta to different land-use scenarios

The urban heat island (UHI) effect changes heat and water cycles in urban areas, and has been accused of elevating energy consumption, deteriorating living environment, and increasing mortality rates. Understanding various UHI effects necessitates a systematic modeling approach. A major problem in UHI simulations is that urban areas were either considered to have only one category of land use/cover or outdated in land use/cover patterns due to the lack of high resolution data. Therefore, this study aims at integrating up-to-date remotely sensed land use/cover data with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF/UCM)/Urban Canopy Model modeling systems to simulate surface temperature patterns in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition, three land-use scenarios, i.e., spontaneous scenario (SS), concentrated scenario (CS), and local policy scenario (LPS), were designed and incorporated into the modeling. Five numerical experiments were conducted by using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to explore the impact of urbanization-induced land-cover changes on temperature patterns. Land use and land-cover patterns under all three scenarios suggested that urban growth would continue through in-filling development and outward expansion. Compared to temperature simulations in 2011, temperature maps corresponding to the three urban growth scenarios showed warmer and cooler temperature patterns outside and inside the urban core, respectively. Analysis of the mean diurnal temperature cycle suggested that the highest temperature difference of 3.9 K was observed between 2011 and the LPS, and occurred around 22:00 local time. Overall, the simulations showed different UHI effects respond to the land-use scenarios in the summer. It is recommended for urban managers and policy makers to reflect on the potential impacts of alternative urban growth policies on thermal environment.