Review of User-Friendly Models to Improve the Urban Micro-Climate

Britta Jänicke,Dragan Milošević,Suneja Manavvi

doi:10.3390/atmos12101291

Britta Jänicke, Dragan Milošević + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12101291

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Abstract

Various micro-scale models for comparing alternative design concepts have been developed in recent decades. The objective of this study is to provide an overview of current user-friendly micro-climate models. In the results, a vast majority of models identified were excluded from the review because the models were not micro-scale, lacking a user-interface, or were not available. In total, eight models met the seven-point inclusion criteria. These models were ADMS Temperature and Humidity model, advanced SkyHelios model, ANSYS FLUENT, ENVI-met, RayMan, SOLWEIG, TownScope, and UMEP. These models differ in their complexity and their widespread use in the scientific community, ranging from very few to thousands of citations. Most of these models simulate air temperature, global radiation, and mean radiant temperature, which helps to evaluate outdoor thermal comfort in cities. All of these models offer a linkage to CAD or GIS software and user support systems at various levels, which facilitates a smooth integration to planning and design. We detected that all models have been evaluated against observations. A wider model comparison, however, has only been performed for fewer models. With this review, we aim to support the finding of a reliable tool, which is fit for the specific purpose.

Highlights

With global climate change, making cities climate-proof has become increasingly critical
Remarkable was the huge variety between the citations of the models ranging from very few into thousands, which might show how widely the models are known in the scientific community
Most of the models included in this review have been developed in Europe: Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling System (ADMS) (Great Britain), advanced SkyHelios, ENVI-met, RayMan (Germany), SOLWEIG (Sweden), TownScope (Belgium), and Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor (UMEP) (Sweden, Great Britain)

Summary

Introduction

With global climate change, making cities climate-proof has become increasingly critical. The form and design of cities effect the outdoor thermal micro-climate, by influencing the micrometeorological variables—air temperature, humidity, solar radiation, and wind speed and direction [1]. Different factors, such as urban morphology [2,3], amount of vegetation, and water bodies (e.g., [4,5]), surface materials (e.g., [6,7]), and ventilation (e.g., [8]), are decisive in determining outdoor thermal comfort. A huge gap, continues to exist between scientific knowledge on climate-sensitive city design and its implementation in practice [10,11]. A wider practical implementation of urban climate knowledge is limited to only a few cities [1,11]

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Conclusion