Numerical Simulation of the Impacts of Anthropogenic Heat on the Structure of the Urban Boundary Layer

Abstract

Abstract To study the problem about how to incorporate the anthropogenic heat flux into the model, we simulate some cases using the Regional Boundary Layer Model developed by Nanjing University (NJU‐RBLM) in different cities and different seasons. The simulated results show that the best scheme of including anthropogenic heat flux into the PBL model is to account for the urban canopy heating terms both in the surface energy budget and in the atmospheric heat conservation equation with certain proportions. Results of sensitivity tests about changing the value of the anthropogenic heat flux show that anthropogenic heat flux plays an important role in the urban heat environment. The contribution of anthropogenic heat to UHI is 29.6% with Nanjing anthropogenic heat data in 2002. When heat emission doubles, it reaches 42.9%. The anthropogenic heat emission has impacts on PBL inversion structure during the morning and the intensity of UHI cyclone, and it could results in a 0.5~1.0°C surface temperature increase at night.