Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Tree Effects On Urban Microclimate: Diurnal, Seasonal, And Climatic Temperature Differences Explained By Separating Radiation, Evapotranspiration, And Roughness Effects, Naika Meili, Gabriele Manoli, Paolo Burlando, Jan Carmeliet, Winston T. L. Chow, Andres M. Coutts, Matthias Roth, Erik Velasco, Enrique R. Vivoni, Simone Fatichi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Increasing urban tree cover is an often proposed mitigation strategy against urban heat as trees are expected to cool cities through evapotranspiration and shade provision. However, trees also modify wind flow and urban aerodynamic roughness, which can potentially limit heat dissipation. Existing studies show a varying cooling potential of urban trees in different climates and times of the day. These differences are so far not systematically explained as partitioning the individual tree effects is challenging and impossible through observations alone. Here, we conduct numerical experiments removing and adding radiation, evapotranspiration, and aerodynamic roughness effects caused by urban trees using a …