The spatial variability of air temperature in the urban canopy layer

This paper presents the results of a monitoring study carried out in the city of Adelaide, Australia, whose primaryaim was to calibrate a model capable of predicting air temperature in an urban street canyon for extended periods in a variety of weather conditions, on the basis of meteorological time series recorded at an open site exposed to the same meso-scale conditions (Erell and Williamson, 2006). The paper presents an analysis of variations in air temperature among the urban sites monitored,and discusses these differences in the context of established conceptual models of the urban heat island phenomenon. A complementary interpretation is proposedbased on the role of the increased surface area of the active thermal mass in a typical dense urban location.