Abstract
Abstract In the context of climate change, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a global concern. Recent publications estimate that 30–40% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gases are directly emitted by urban areas. This paper focuses on CO 2 , which is the main anthropogenic greenhouse gas, and presents an implementation of CO 2 flux modelling in urban areas within the urban canopy model Town Energy Balance (TEB). Highly weather-dependent contributors to CO 2 fluxes (buildings and vegetation) are explicitly modelled by TEB using the Building Energy Model (BEM) for buildings and Interactions between Soil, Biosphere and Atmosphere (ISBA) for urban vegetation. This approach allows the impacts of the urban microclimate on CO 2 fluxes to be simulated. Non-weather-dependent contributors (traffic and human respiration) are simulated using simpler approaches. A sensitivity study applied to the centre of Toulouse, France, highlights the relevance of detailed input data related to traffic, building use and human behaviour to simulate accurate CO 2 fluxes. The results show that traffic (48.5%) and buildings (42%) are the main contributors to the annual mean CO 2 flux. A comparison of the model results with independent eddy-covariance flux data shows good agreement with a root mean square error of 15.3 μ mol m −2 s −1 and demonstrates that the model is able to reproduce seasonally averaged daily cycles of CO 2 fluxes. In future studies, this model can be used to quantify the impacts on CO 2 fluxes of different urban development scenarios such as urban expansion, changes in urban form, changes in practices related to the heating of buildings or urban greening strategies.
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call