[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

The seasonal trend of vertical temperature profiles within and above an urban canopy has been investigated. We measured air temperatures and wind velocities along a 29-m tower in a residential area of Tokyo, Japan continually for 14 months. The height of the daily maximum temperature ZTmax varied with the season; ZTmax was at the roof level in winter but near the ground in summer. The seasonal change of ZTmax is likely due to the change of height at which solar energy is absorbed. At the time of the maximum temperature, the atmosphere above the canopy is always unstable whereas the air within the canopy is unstable in summer but stable in winter.

View full abstract

In this paper, we evaluate the applicability of flux-gradient relationships for momentum and heat for urban boundary layers within the Monin-Obukhov similarity (MOS) theory framework. Although the theory is widely used for smooth wall boundary layers, it is not known how well the theory works for urban layers. To address this problem, wemeasured the vertical profiles of wind velocity, air temperature, and fluxes of heat and momentum over a residential area and compared the results to theory. We found the following: (1) The non-dimensional horizontal wind speed has good agreement with the stratified logarithmic profile predicted using the semi-empirical Monin-Obukov similarity (MOS) function, when it was scaled by the surface friction velocity that is derived from the shear stress extrapolated to the roof-top level. (2) The scaled gradient of horizontal windspeed followed a conventional semiempirical function for a flat surface above the canopy, whereas, in the vicinity of the canopy height it was larger than the commonly-used empirical relationship. (3) The potential temperature profile above the canopy shows dependency on the atmospheric stability and the scaled gradient of temperature is in good agreement with a conventional shear function for heat. In the case of heat, the dependency on height was not found. (4) The flux-gradient relationship for momentumand heat was rather similar to that for flat surfaces than that for vegetated canopies.

View full abstract

Large-eddy simulations have been performed for fully developed turbulent flow within and above explicitly resolved simple cube arrays. The results from our model, hereafter LES-CITY, are shown to agree with laboratory experiments. We investigated the systematic influence of cube density on turbulent flow characteristics by performing numerical experiments for cube areal densitiesfrom 0 to 44%. The following results were obtained: (1) The dispersive momentum flux was quite large within the canopy layer due to a mean stream re-circulation, whereas it was smaller above thecanopy. The spatial variation of temporally averaged momentum in the roughness sub-layer was 20% or less of the total kinematic surface drag. (2) The temporally and spatially-averaged flow structure confirmed the existence of conventionally described canyon flow regimes; isolated, interfacial, and wake. However, the intermittency of the canyon flow for all cube densities was quite large and the stream patterns were never persistent. (3) Turbulent organized structures (TOS) similar to those observed in turbulent surface-layer flows were simulated, which are characterized by longitudinallyelongated low speed streaks and the corresponding shorter streamwise vortices. The streaks in sparse and dense canopy flows were likely to be aligned to the street line and to the roof lines, respectively. Such heterogeneity of TOS partially accounts for the large spatial variation of momentum flux. (4) In contrast to the mixing layer analogy of vegetation flows, the TOS and the resulting turbulent statistics of urban flow above the canopy resembled those in surface layers. The recirculation withinthe canopy significantly influenced the turbulent statistical properties.

View full abstract