An approach to the variability of urban surface energy budgets under stratified synoptic weather types

Abstract

AbstractA simulation‐based method for examining the response of urban canyon energy budgets to stratified synoptic weather types is outlined and briefly illustrated. The approach contains three steps: (1) an objective grouping procedure consisting of a principal components analysis of sixteen climatic variables followed by a cluster analysis of the resulting component scores is applied to the Boston, Massachusetts Typical Meteorological Year data set to group each day into a limited number of synoptic weather types; (2) a characteristic day is identified for each weather type based upon a minimized sum‐of‐squares criterion; (3) the URBAN3 numerical model is used to simulate the surface energy budget of a standard urban canyon for each of the synoptic weather types.Results illustrate the response of urban canyon surface energetic patterns to stratified synoptic weather types. The objective grouping procedure utilized should be applicable to a wide variety of computer modelling applications involving complete daily climatic data sets.