Coupled Pavement-Urban Canyon Model for Assessing Cool Pavements

摘要

One of the primary causes of the urban heat island (UHI) effect is the use of construction materials that absorb and store more heat than natural vegetation. Additional heating and temperature rise occurs because of the coupling between man-made surfaces and the air in urban areas. A coupled pavement-urban canyon model has been developed and applied to a hypothetical urban domain with 12 urban canyons in order to quantify the microscale UHI intensity for the statistically warmest hour of the year in Chicago, USA. The control pavement with low albedo and diffusivity had a microscale UHI intensity of 4.2—5.1°C as compared to the mesoscale intensity of 4°C. When the control pavement was replaced by a cool pavement of higher albedo and diffusivity, the microscale UHI intensity decreased in all the canyons to 4.0— 4.4°C as compared to the control. The decrease in UHI magnitude ranged from 0.1-0.7°C with an average decrease of 0.4°C.