Urban weather, climate and air quality modeling: increasing resolution and accuracy using improved urban morphology - Urban Remote Sensing: Monitoring, Synthesis and Modeling in the Urban Environment - page 291

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Urban weather, climate and air quality
modeling: increasing resolution and
accuracy using improved urban
morphology
Susanne Grossman-Clarke, William L. Stefanov
and Joseph A. Zehnder
Expansion of cities to accommodate increasing population has global, regional and local effects on weather, climate
and air quality, subsequently influencing human comfort and health. Atmospheric models are increasingly being
employed to improve understanding of the impact of urban development on atmospheric processes. In this chapter
we will give an overview of the recent development of physical approaches for the representation of urban areas in
regional atmospheric models, input data, and urban characterization. These model developments were enabled by
improvements in computer capacity and the accompanying increase in spatial resolution of atmospheric models.
The demands on model input parameters characterizing urban land use and building morphology, along with the
methods to derive them from remotely sensed data from various platforms will be discussed. We will review the
findings of studies for several cities around the globe that have investigated the influence of urban land use and land
cover changes on urban meteorology, climate and air quality. In a specific case study for the rapidly urbanizing
Phoenix (Arizona, USA) area, we will demonstrate how remotely sensed data are used to study the effect of historic
land use changes on near-surface air temperature during recent extreme heat events.