Numerical Fit Modeling for Temperature Mitigation in Arid Cities

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to develop a general method to predict local temperature changes from mitigating the urban heat island effect using local climate engineering. Specifically, the effects of a plume of calcite particles above cities have been found. Previous modeling work has been carried out with supercomputers, but those models have limited geographies and timelines. The main goal of this work is to produce a method that can be applied more generally and more quickly. This overcomes limited modeling data in arid regions. Arid cities show the most effective use of calcite plumes for local solar radiation management, but those areas have limited data. The new method is to use numerical fit techniques using actual weather data. The default heating and cooling rates are fit to historic rates, and then the radiative properties of the calcite are used to predict the change in the heat transfer rates. Air temperatures at a standard height of 2 m are predicted. The key findings are that the numerical fit gives comparable results to the full supercomputer model, but the numerical fit gives predictions of greater temperature change. This was explained as primarily due to how advection is handled differently by the methods. Adjustments in the methods are discussed so that the effect of advection is included. The conclusion is that numerical fit provides a method that can easily be applied to arid regions.

Keywords

• urban heat mitigation
• arid climates
• solar radiation management
• single column model
• aerosol reflectivity