Analysis of the Effects of Advection and Urban Fraction on Urban Heat Island Intensity using Unified Model for Seoul Metropolitan Area, Korea

This study investigates the impacts of urban land-use fraction and temperature advection on the urban heat island intensity over the Seoul metropolitan area using the UM (Unified Model) with the MORUSES (Met Office Reading Urban Surface Exchange Scheme) during the heat wave over the region from 2 to 8, August 2016. Two simulations are performed with two different land-use type, the urban (urban simulation) and the urban surfaces replaced with grass (rural simulation), in order to calculate the urban heat island intensity defined as the 1.5-m temperature difference between the urban and the rural simulations. The land-use type for the urban simulation is obtained from Korea Ministry of Environment (2007) land-use data after it is converted into the types used in the UM. It is found that the urban heat island intensity over high urban-fraction regions in the metropolitan area is as large as 1 degrees C in daytime and 3.2 degrees C in nighttime, i.e., the effects of urban heat island is much larger for night than day. It is also found that the magnitude of urban heat island intensity increases linearly with urban land-use fraction. Spatially, the estimated the urban heat island intensities are systematically larger in the downwind regions of the metropolitan area than in the upwind area due to the effects of temperature advection. Results of this study indicate that urban surface fraction in the city area and temperature advection play a key role in determining the spatial distribution and magnitude of urban heat island intensity.