Mažeikis, A.

Urbanization influence on meteorological parameters of air pollution: Vilnius case study

Abstract

This study concerns on spatial and temporal effects of surface parameters on boundary layer meteorological fields in urban territories. Selected parameters (2-metre temperature, precipitation amount and intensity, wind speed) are important for evaluating air pollution dispersion. Study is done using Enviro-HIRLAM numerical weather prediction model with the modifications of surface parameters to reflect changes due to urbanization. The modifications were made to parameters that are directly influenced by urbanization: surface roughness, albedo and anthropogenic heat flux. Case study consists of three different dates with different conditions and two different modelling domains. Overall, nine simulation runs were done including the control ones. Comparison of control and modified model runs was used for evaluation of effects. Differences of wind speed and temperature between control and modified runs were detected and in some cases, they reach up to 1.4 °C and 2.7 m/s. In addition, spatial differences in precipitation meteorological field were observed.



Doi https://doi.org/10.5200/baltica.2013.26.06

Keywords Urban territories; Boundary layer meteorology; Air pollution dispersion; Numerical weather prediction; Physical geography; Vilnius city; Lithuania

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