Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2017, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 207-212
On air circulation in “heat islands” of urban areas
V.I. Gornyy
1 , V.K. Donchenko
2, 1 , D.A. Samulenkov
2 , M.V. Sapunov
2 , O.V. Brovkina
3 , S.G. Kritsuk
1 , I.Sh. Latypov
1 , A.A. Tronin
1 1 Saint Petersburg Scientific Research Center for Ecological Safety RAS, Saint Petersburg, Russia
2 St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia
3 Global Change Research Institute CAS (CzechGlobe), Brno, Czech Republic
Accepted: 25.05.2017
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2017-14-4-207-212
The ongoing global warming process leads to surpassing rise of temperature within the so-called “heat islands” of large cities. Thus, it is important to investigate the mechanics of the temperature increase within the urban environment to forecast and maintain the standards of environmental safety for population of large cities. This brief report presents the scientific facts obtained by remote sensing methods that confirm the model of convective circulation of air masses within “heat islands”. That semi-quantitative model was built on the basis of mathematical simulation of air masses movements over urban areas. Model verification was performed with the help of infrared thermal satellite monitoring of St. Petersburg and Kiev and ground-based lidar sounding of wind speeds in St. Petersburg city center. Opposite trends in temperature dynamics of urban environment in the city centers and surrounding areas as well as specific distribution of vertical and horizontal wind speeds in the center of St. Petersburg indicate air mass circulation. It was concluded that experimental verification of the convective air mass circulation model allows planning an experiment to estimate the possible distance range of air transportation of pollutants produced in city.
Keywords: “heat island”, air circulation, model, satellite imagery, lidar
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