eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

Mean near surface potential temperature at 12:00 (K)
300.8
300.4
300.0
299.6
299.2
298.8
298.4
y = 6.2517x + 297.34
R 2 = 0.9913
298.0
0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50
Mean urban land cover fraction
Figure 7.2: Mean potential temperature (K) as a function of the mean urban land cover fraction as
computed by the simulations of the EXPANSION series at 12:00 of the second day of simulation
At 12:00 the results are significantly different from some of the analysis in Chapter 6,
where the maximum rate of increase was 2.93 K(mean urban land cover fraction) -1 for the
DENSITY series. These results show a change in behaviour when the urban land cover
fraction is increased from its current extent. As the urban surface starts to dominate within
the domain and the existing urban density within each grid cell is increased at the expense
of the rural land use and green space (‘Meadows’), there is a sharper, more significant
increase in the daytime temperature.
In Chapter 6 it was found that only the DENSITY series showed a significant increase in
the domain averaged daytime temperature, whereas the other two series representing past
urbanisation showed no significant increase. This result is now confirmed by these model
simulations, which represent both the densification and horizontal expansion of the city and
which also show an increase in the domain averaged daytime temperature. This result has
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