Role of City Texture in Urban Heat Islands at Nighttime

J.M. Sobstyl , T. Emig (1) , M.J. Abdolhosseini Qomi , F.-J. Ulm , R.J.-M. Pellenq (2)

1 LPTMS - Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modèles Statistiques
2 CINaM - Centre Interdisciplinaire de Nanoscience de Marseille

An urban heat island (UHI) is a climate phenomenon that results in an increased air temperature in cities when compared to their rural surroundings. In this Letter, the dependence of an UHI on urban geometry is studied. Multiyear urban-rural temperature differences and building footprints data combined with a heat radiation scaling model are used to demonstrate for more than 50 cities worldwide that city texture—measured by a building distribution function and the sky view factor—explains city-to-city variations in nocturnal UHIs. Our results show a strong correlation between nocturnal UHIs and the city texture.

Domaines: Analyse de données, Statistiques et Probabilités [physics.data-an]; Physique Générale [physics.gen-ph]

J.M. Sobstyl, T. Emig, M.J. Abdolhosseini Qomi, F.-J. Ulm, R.J.-M. Pellenq. Role of City Texture in Urban Heat Islands at Nighttime. Physical Review Letters, 2018, 120 (10), pp.108701. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.108701⟩. ⟨hal-01729976⟩