Estimation of Climate-Change Impacts on the Urban Heat Load Using an Urban Climate Model and Regional Climate Projections

Abstract

Abstract A pragmatic approach to estimate the impact of climate change on the urban environment, here called the cuboid method, is presented. This method allows one to simulate the urban heat load and the frequency of air temperature threshold exceedances using only eight microscale urban climate simulations for each relevant wind direction and time series of daily meteorological parameters either from observations or regional climate projections. Eight representative simulations are designed to encompass all major potential urban heat-stress conditions. From these representative simulations, the urban-heat-load conditions in any weather situation are derived by interpolation. The presented approach is applied to study possible future heat load in Frankfurt, Germany, using the high-resolution Microscale Urban Climate Model in three dimensions (MUKLIMO_3). To estimate future changes in heat-load-related climate indices in Frankfurt, climate projections from the regional climate models Max Planck Institute Regional Model (REMO), Climate Limited-Area Model (CLM), Wetterlagen-basierte Regionalisierungsmethode (WETTREG), and Statistical Regional Model (STAR) are used. These regional climate models are driven by the “ECHAM5” general circulation model and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission scenario A1B. For the mean annual number of days with a maximum daily temperature exceeding 25°C, a comparison between the cuboid method results from observed and projected regional climate time series of the period 1971–2000 shows good agreement, except for CLM for which a clear underestimation is found. On the basis of the 90% significance level of all four regional climate models, the mean annual number of days with a maximum daily temperature exceeding 25°C in Frankfurt is expected to increase by 5–32 days for 2021–50 as compared with 1971–2000.