2018 Urban Research Award: Observing and Modeling Urban Boundary Layers Under Heat Waves

Heat waves (HWs) are amongst the deadliest natural disasters and are one of the most important causes of weather-related mortality. Urban residents, which now account for more than 50% of the global population, are arguably more vulnerable to HWs due to the urban heat island (UHI) effect wherein cities are usually hotter than the surrounding rural areas.

Earth & Environment Assistant Professor Dan Li will create a modeling tool in order to quantify the city-scale effects of heat mitigation efforts in order to directly inform the design of municipal policies centered around heat solutions. Professor Li will develop a decade-long (2007-2016) data record of urban PBL (planetary boundary layer ) temperature profiles using aircraft measurements, covering over 50 airports (located near cities) over the continental US and will provide, for the first time, a lens into the urban PBL at unprecedented temporal scales (hourly). Professor Li will further augment this data with numerical simulations conducted by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to examine whether the WRF model, which is the state-of-the-science model used by the National Weather Service, captures urban PBL profiles under HWs. Finally, he will create and utilize a novel attribution method to quantify the role of surface heating (i.e., sensible heat flux) and PBL dynamics in controlling the thermal conditions experienced by urban residents under HWs, which is critical for guiding the design of urban mitigation and adaptation strategies to increase urban resilience to HWs.

Publications:

Wang, L, D. Li. 2019. “Modulation of the urban boundary‐layer heat budget by a heatwave.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society Volume 145, no. 722: 1814-1831. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3526.

Zhang, Y., D. Li, Z. Lin, J. A. Santanello, and Z. Gao. 2019. “Development and Evaluation of a Long‐Term Data Record of Planetary Boundary Layer Profiles From Aircraft Meteorological Reports.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 124, no. 4: 2008-2030. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD029529.

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