Urban warming and future air-conditioning use in an Asian megacity: importance of positive feedback

Takane, Y., Kikegawa, Y., Hara, M. and Grimmond, C. S. B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3166-9415 (2019) Urban warming and future air-conditioning use in an Asian megacity: importance of positive feedback. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 2 (1). 39. ISSN 2397-3722 doi: 10.1038/s41612-019-0096-2

Abstract/Summary

The impact of feedback between urban warming and air-conditioning (AC) use on temperatures in future urban climates is explored in this study. Pseudo global warming projections are dynamically downscaled to 1 km using a regional climate model (RCM) coupled to urban canopy and building energy models for current and six future global warming (ΔTGW) climates based on IPCC RCP8.5. Anthropogenic heat emissions from AC use is projected to increase almost linearly with ΔTGW, causing additional urban warming. This feedback on urban warming reaches 20% of ΔTGW in residential areas. This further uncertainty in future projections is comparable in size to that associated with: a selection of emission scenarios, RCMs and urban planning scenarios. Thus, this feedback should not be neglected in future urban climate projections, especially in hot cities with large AC use. The impact of the feedback during the July 2018 Japanese heat waves is calculated to be 0.11ºC.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/87076
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	Nature Publishing Group
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