Everyday vehicle use can play a measurable role in making cities warmer, potentially contributing to the ‘heat island’ effect that can see large metropolitan areas become unbearably hot during extreme weather events.
A team at the University of Manchester developed a physics-based module that allows heat produced by urban traffic to be represented directly within the Community Earth System Model – one of the world’s most widely used global climate models for predicting how the Earth’s climate behaves.
By adding urban traffic-related heat processes directly into the numerical model, the team were able to show how vehicles can measurably raise temperatures in cities and influence how heat moves between roads, buildings and the surrounding air.
In Manchester, the results showed that traffic heat increased simulated air temperatures by around 0.16°C during summer and 0.35°C in winter. The scientists say that while these temperature increases may appear small, they can make a meaningful difference...