Impacts of anthropogenic heat on summertime rainfall in Beijing

Nie, W.-S., Zaitchik, B. F., Ni, G.-H. and Sun, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2486-6146 (2017) Impacts of anthropogenic heat on summertime rainfall in Beijing. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 18 (3). pp. 693-712. ISSN 1525-7541 doi: 10.1175/JHM-D-16-0173.1

Abstract/Summary

Anthropogenic heat is an important component of the urban energy budgets that can affect land surface and atmospheric boundary layer processes. Representation of anthropogenic heat in numerical climate modeling systems is therefore important when simulating urban meteorology and climate and has the potential to improve weather forecasts, climate process studies, and energy demand analysis. Here, spatiotemporally dynamic anthropogenic heat data estimated by the Building Effects Parameterization and Building Energy Model (BEP-BEM) are incorporated into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model system to investigate its impact on simulation of summertime rainfall in Beijing, China. Simulations of four local rainfall events with and without anthropogenic heat indicate that anthropogenic heat leads to increased rainfall over the urban area. For all four events, anthropogenic heat emission increases sensible heat flux, enhances mixing and turbulent energy transport, lifts PBL height, increases dry static energy, and destabilizes the atmosphere in urban areas through thermal perturbation and strong upward motion during the prestorm period, resulting in enhanced convergence during the major rainfall period. Intensified rainfall leads to greater atmospheric dry-down during the storm and a higher poststorm LCL.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/71102
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	American Meteorological Society
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