Numerical Study on the Effect of Urbanization and Coastal Change on Sea Breeze over Qingdao, China

Abstract

During the past few decades, rapid economic development occurred in Qingdao. Inevitably, human activities have caused great changes to the underlying surface, including urbanization and coastal change. Coastal change mainly refers to the expansion of the coastline to increase coastal land area. Sea-land breeze (SLB) is important for local weather and the transport of air pollutant. However, the impact of human activities on the SLB over Qingdao is not yet clear. Thus, the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model is applied to study the effect of urbanization and coastal change on SLB. The study shows that urbanization strengthens the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Due to the expansions of urban area during past decades, sea breeze is strengthened before it passes through the urban areas. When it penetrates into the city, the inland progress of sea breeze is slowed down due to the UHI effect and stronger frictional force. Besides, the expansions of coastline can delay the SLB conversion time, lead to the changes in the sea breeze penetration path and the weakening of SLB intensity.

Keywords

• urbanization
• coastal change
• numerical simulation
• sea-land breeze