Conference Paper

Proceedings of Building Simulation 2021: 17th Conference of IBPSA

Urban heat islands in future climate scenarios

Violeta Lialios-Bouwman, J. Alstan Jakubiec
University of Toronto, Canada

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26868/25222708.2021.31008
Abstract: We demonstrate a case study of Urban Heat Island (UHI) indicators in Toronto, ON, Canada under five climate change scenarios until 2080. We simulated 48,600 UHI predictions by varying nine urban design parameters: building height, site coverage ratio (SCR), fa^ade-to-site ratio (FSR), green coverage ratio (GCR), tree canopy ratio (TCR), building type, albedo, green roof coverage, and material thermal properties (of the window, roof, and walls). Results show that under future climates, UHI intensity decreases slightly, while our indicator of heat stress (hours above 30 C°) rises significantly. Vegetation, SCR, FSR, and building height are found to have the strongest effect on mediating UHI under climate change, indicating the importance of increasing greenspace and reducing building surface area and density in urban design.
Keywords: urban heat island, future climate, heat stress
Pages: 957 - 964
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