Published In

Environmental Modelling & Software

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2007

Subjects

Buildings -- Environmental engineering, Atmospheric models, Metropolitan areas -- Environmental aspects, Sustainable development

Abstract

A web-based software tool has been developed to assist urban planners and air quality management officials in assessing the potential of urban heat island mitigation strategies to affect the urban climate, air quality, and energy consumption within their cities. The user of the tool can select from over 170 US cities for which to conduct the analysis, and can specify city-wide changes in surface reflectivity and/or vegetative cover. The Mitigation Impact Screening Tool (MIST) then extrapolates results from a suite of simulations for 20 cities to estimate air temperature changes associated with the specified changes in surface characteristics for the selected city. Alternatively the user can simply define a nominal air temperature reduction that they hope to achieve with an unspecified mitigation scenario. These air temperature changes are then input to energy and ozone models to estimate the impact that the mitigation action may have on the selected city. The results presented by MIST include a high degree of uncertainty and are intended only as a first-order estimate that urban planners can use to assess the viability of heat island mitigation strategies for their cities. As appropriate, MIST analyses should be supplemented by more detailed modeling.

Description

This work was authored as part of the Contributor's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.

This is the publisher's final PDF. Originally published in Environmental Modelling & Software and can be found online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2006.11.005

DOI

10.1016/j.envsoft.2006.11.005

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/12862

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