Abstract

The impact of urbanization on local meteorology (e.g., surface temperature, PBL height, wind speed, etc.) in the Greater Seoul Area (GSA) was quantitatively evaluated based on a numerical modeling approach during a 1-month period of 2001 (9 Sep. through 8 Oct. 2001). The analysis was carried out by two sets of simulation scenarios: (1) with the global land use and topographic data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in 1990s (i.e., LU-USGS case) and (2) with the land use data from the Environmental Geographic Information System (EGIS) along with the 3 sec elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) in 2000s (i.e., LU-EGIS case). The extension of urban areas in the GSA (especially, the southern parts of Seoul) accounted for 1.8% in the LU-USGS case and 6.2% in the LU-EGIS case. For the simulations, the surface temperature and PBL height due to urbanization in the LU-EGIS case was higher (the differences of up to and 36 m, respectively) than those in the LU-USGS case, whereas the wind speed (up to 0.3 ) in the former was lower than that in the latter at 1500 LST. The increase in surface temperature due to urbanization in the GSA (especially, the southern parts of Seoul) was led to the strong convergence of air masses, causing the early sea breeze and its rapid propagation to inland locations. In addition, the vertical mixing motion in the extended urban areas for the LU-EGIS case was predicted to be stronger than that for the LU-USGS case and vice versa for the original urban areas.

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