EGU22-12883
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12883
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

High-resolution WRF-BEP+BEM modelling of urban heat island and urban pollution island effects for Minsk, Belarus with different approaches to urban morphology representation

Siarhei Barodka1, Tsimafei Schlender1,2, Natallia Darozhka1,2, Ilya Bruchkouski1,3, Aleh Baravik4, Milvari Alieva2, Natalia Zhukovskaya2, Yauheniya Yarash2, Maksim Birukou2, and Tatsiana Tabalchuk1,2
Siarhei Barodka et al.
  • 1National Ozone Monitoring Research and Education Center (NOMREC), Belarusian State University, Minsk, Belarus (barodka@bsu.by)
  • 2Faculty of Geography and Geoinformatics, Belarusian State University, Minsk, Belarus
  • 3Institute of Applied Physical Problems, Belarusian State University, Minsk, Belarus
  • 4Republican Center for Hydrometeorology, Control of Radioactive Contamination and Environmental Monitoring, Minsk, Belarus

This study is devoted to analysis of Urban Heat Island (UHI) and Urban Pollution Island (UPI) effects in Minsk, Belarus by means of high-resolution atmospheric urban modelling. We present first results of our implementation of the WRF-BEP+BEM modelling system for Minsk with two different approaches to urban morphology: one involving the Local Climate Zones (LCZ) methodology and the other being based on direct representation of urban parameters on the model grid. For that purpose, we combine satellite remote sensing data with geoinformation systems (GIS), centralized city planning databases and Open Street Maps (OSM) vector data to implement description of land use / land cover for Minsk urban territory and the surrounding area along with a representation of buildings data and other urban parameters with a level of detail necessary for high resolution modelling (500 m, 300 m and 100 m grids). Different configurations of the WRF-BEP+BEM modelling system are then used to perform a series of  simulations involving various meteorological conditions over Minsk, Belarus to investigate manifestations of the UHI and UPI effects. In modelling results validation special emphasis is made on analysis of surface temperature parameters and near-surface atmospheric circulation, the latter being important for atmospheric pollutants transport in the urban area. For validation, we use observational data of surface temperature, wind fields and atmospheric pollution from ground-based measurements (including both regular meteorological stations and crowdsourced data from citizen weather stations) and satellite remote sensing for Minsk urban area and the surrounding region. Analysis results reveal the degree of applicability of each approach to urban morphology representation in WRF-BEP+BEM for Minsk and similar urban territories on high-resolution modelling grids.

How to cite: Barodka, S., Schlender, T., Darozhka, N., Bruchkouski, I., Baravik, A., Alieva, M., Zhukovskaya, N., Yarash, Y., Birukou, M., and Tabalchuk, T.: High-resolution WRF-BEP+BEM modelling of urban heat island and urban pollution island effects for Minsk, Belarus with different approaches to urban morphology representation, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-12883, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12883, 2022.