Modeling the effects of land-use/land-cover modifications on the urban heat island phenomena in Houston, Texas

摘要: This report includes the MS Thesis of Rochelle Balmori, which was submitted to the Department of Meteorology at San Jose State University. Each listed author contributed to the overall effort. The report also includes the PowerPoint version of the Thesis. The current study used the highly urbanized Martilli-Dupont scheme within MM5 to investigate Houston UHI conditions during the 25 August TexAQS 2000 O3-episode. The study also evaluated UHI changes that would occur from a proposed Houston treeplanting scenario. A detailed analysis was also carried out of interactions between observed (synoptic and mesoscale) met forcings that produced the episode. The standard MM5 was used in four outer domains, while uMM5 was used only in the innermost domain (1-km grid spacing). Domain-5 urban inputs to uMM5 included externally supplied LIDAR morphology data sets (1-m resolution), a LU/LC sub-grid distribution (30-m resolution), and MODIS-derived surface TI, albedo, and vegetativecover (1-km resolution). Projected HGA changes in vegetative cover by year 2010, obtained from the US-TFS, showed areas of urban reforestation and rural deforestation (around the city in areas slatted for new suburban development); uMM5 input surface properties were thus modified accordingly. The following simulations were carried out: MM5 present day forest-coverage; uMM5 base-case present day forest-coverage; and uMM5 2010 reforestation. All simulations began at 0000 UTC on 22 August and ended at 2300 UTC on 26 August.