EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF A MODEL TO ADAPT MEASURED DATA AT A STANDARD WEATHER STATION TO REPRESENT SITE-SPECIFIC AIR TEMPERATURE IN AN URBAN STREET CANYON

Meteorological measurements required for the development of a design scheme that responds to the local environment are generally recorded by the weather service in stations that are assumed to be representative of the surrounding region. However, no account is taken of the changes in conditions caused by urban development, even though differences between meteorological conditions within cities compared with adjacent rural areas (the heat island effect) may be substantial.
A new analytical model (CAT) provides data representing realistic site-specific air temperature in a city street based only on data from standard weather stations such as those operated at local airports and descriptors of the two sites. The CAT model has been tested on field data measured in a monitoring program carried out in Adelaide in 2000-2001. After calibrating the model, predicted air temperature correlated well with measured data in all weather conditions over extended periods.