NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SUMMER AND WINTER HEAT ISLAND POTENTIAL FOR VARIOUS URBAN BLOCKS

Abstract

The present paper describes a numerical analysis on characteristics of the urban heat island in summer and winter for various urban blocks in terms of the heat island potential (HIP). The HIP is defined as an index by which to express the sensible heat flux from all external surfaces of an urban block to the atmosphere. Urban blocks (12 cases) with different land use and building types in the downtown of Tokyo were selected for the analysis. The HIPs for a typical summer and winter clear day were quantified using the thermal simulation tool developed by the authors' research group. Simulation results show that diurnal variations of the HIP for the selected urban blocks are different from seasons, types of land use and land coverage.