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Impact of anthropogenic heat emissions on meteorological parameters and air quality in Beijing using a high-resolution model simulation

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Abstract

Anthropogenic heat emissions (AHE) play an important role in modulating the atmospheric thermodynamic and kinetic properties within the urban planetary boundary layer, particularly in densely populated megacities like Beijing. In this study, we estimate the AHE by using a Large-scale Urban Consumption of energY (LUCY) model and further couple LUCY with a high-resolution regional chemical transport model to evaluate the impact of AHE on atmospheric environment in Beijing. In areas with high AHE, the 2-m temperature (T2) increased to varying degrees and showed distinct diurnal and seasonal variations with maxima in night and winter. The increase in 10-m wind speed (WS10) and planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) exhibited slight diurnal variations but showed significant seasonal variations. Further, the systematic continuous precipitation increased by 2.1 mm due to the increase in PBLH and water vapor in upper air. In contrast, the precipitation in local thermal convective showers increased little because of the limited water vapor. Meanwhile, the PM2.5 reduced in areas with high AHE because of the increase in WS10 and PBLH and continued to reduce as the pollution levels increased. In contrast, in areas where prevailing wind direction was opposite to that of thermal circulation caused by AHE, the WS10 reduced, leading to increased PM2.5. The changes of PM2.5 illustrated that a reasonable AHE scheme might be an effective means to improve the performance of PM2.5 simulation. Besides, high AHE aggravated the O3 pollution in urban areas due to the reduction in NOx.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFC0213502), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41907190), and the Beijing Municipal Commission of Science and Technology (No. Z19110000119004). We acknowledge the Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology for providing access to the “Explorer 100” cluster system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aviation University of Air Force, Changchun, 130022, China

    Hengrui Tao & Gaofeng Pan

  2. School of Environment and State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Hengrui Tao, Jia Xing, Shuxiao Wang, Xing Chang & Junhua Li

  3. State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex, Beijing, 100084, China

    Hengrui Tao, Jia Xing, Shuxiao Wang, Xing Chang & Junhua Li

  4. Research Triangle Park, Environmental Protection Agency, Durham, NC, 27711, USA

    Jonathan Pleim

  5. East Remote Sensing Laboratory, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC, NC, 20250, USA

    Limei Ran

  6. Unit No. 96941 of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Beijing, 100041, China

    Guojing Li

  7. Unit No. 31010 of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Beijing, 100081, China

    Fei Chen

Authors
  1. Hengrui Tao
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  2. Jia Xing
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  4. Jonathan Pleim
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  8. Guojing Li
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  9. Fei Chen
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  10. Junhua Li
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Correspondence to Jia Xing or Junhua Li.

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Highlights

• The Large scale Urban Consumption of energY model was updated and coupled with WRF.

• Anthropogenic heat emissions altered the precipitation and its spatial distribution.

• A reasonable AHE scheme could improve the performance of simulated PM2.5.

• AHE aggravated the O3 pollution in urban areas.

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11783_2021_1478_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Impact of anthropogenic heat emissions on meteorological parameters and air quality in Beijing using a high-resolution model simulation

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Tao, H., Xing, J., Pan, G. et al. Impact of anthropogenic heat emissions on meteorological parameters and air quality in Beijing using a high-resolution model simulation. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 16, 44 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1478-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1478-3

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