October 01, 2013

Heat Island
Surekha Tetali

Summary 2: Effect of Vegetation on Urban

48-722 Building Performance Modeling

Green Roofs to Cool Cities ?

Urban Heat Island (UHI) is a phenomenon in which the day time temperatures
in urbanized regions of a city are higher than the temperatures in rural areas
(Santamouris 2001). The cause of UHI effect can be attributed to urbanization with
increase in built environment and population, and decrease in vegetation. In peak
summers, exposed surfaces of the built environment can be 30 0C-400C hotter
compared to the ambient air dry bulb temperature (Akbari, Pomerantz, and Taha
2001) leading to UHI effect. Various prior studies (Rizwan, Dennis, and Liu 2008,
Akbari and Konopacki 2005, Akbari, Pomerantz, and Taha 2001) suggest improving
albedo of material and increasing urban vegetation can mitigate the UHI effect.
Urban vegetation can decrease the ambient air temperature (through
evapotranspiration) and surface temperatures (by shading). In a field study
conducted by (Rosenfeld et al. 1995) at Sacrameto, it is observed that trees can
reduce the cooling energy use by 30-35% when placed on the south and south-west
facade of the building. In Athens, on a vertical wall, shading decreased the surface
temperature by 8.50C when compared to a surface directly exposed to solar
radiation, and the ambient air temperature is 0.5 0C -3.00C cooler in the presence of
trees (Papadakis, Tsamis, and Kyritsis 2001). However, in urban environments, the
availability of ground area is limited and hence the potential of planting new trees is
low. Given the vast area of building roofs in urban environments (Akbari, Menon,
and Rosenfeld 2009), vegetation on roofs can be a potential technique in mitigating
the UHI effect. Hence, in this summary, the effect of green roofs in mitigating urban
heat island effect is focused.
The affect of green roof on a individual building level has been studied in
various studies both computationally and experimentally. Experiments by Wong et
al. (Wong et al. 2003) studied the effect of intensive green roof on a building located
in Singapore. The ambient temperatures measured at a height of 300mm above the
roof show that air temperature over green roof is 4.2 0C cooler than the air
temperature on hard roof. However, the ambient air temperature was similar above
all the roofs, when measured at a height of 1000 mm. This uniform temperature
might be because of the wind. The global temperature measured over green roof
was 4.050C lower than that over the hard roof. The Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT)
over the roof, calculated from the measured data showed that the green roof was
cooler by a maximum of 4.50C compared to hard roof. The authors use these values
to show that the long wave radiation emitted by the green roof is lower when
compared to the hard roof, and hence at a urban scale, green roofs mitigate the UHI
effect. Each individual green roof lowers the surface temperature of that building
and the nearby air. This cooler air through advection affects the temperature of the
entire city and can help in mitigating UHI. In order to quantify this mitigating affect,
mesoscale atmospheric models are frequently used. Remote sensing and GIS data
are used to develop high resolution land-surface data for such models.

October 01, 2013

Heat Island
Surekha Tetali

Summary 2: Effect of Vegetation on Urban

48-722 Building Performance Modeling

In an extensive simulation study (Rosenzweig, Solecki, and Slosberg 2006)

performed mesoscale atmospheric model of NewYork City during three different
days when the city was experiencing heat waves. Regional climate model MM5
(Grell, Dudhia, and Stauffer 2011) was used to simulate sensible and latent heat
fluxes for the land-surface cover and the meteorological conditions. Simultaneous
energy balance models for grass, trees, water and impervious mediums were run to
calculate the air temperature. The model was calibrated with the measured
temperatures. To study the affect of green roof on UHI, the green roof coverage was
increased to 50% of the entire city. This resulted in a reduction of the peak near
surface air temperature by 0.8 0F at 3pm in NYC. The daily average temperature of
the New York city and 6 neighboring regions studied decreased as well (range of
decrease=0.4-1.1 0F).
In a study conducted by Chen et al. (Chen et al. 2009), CSCRC (coupled
simulations of convection, radiation, and conduction) was performed on two urban
areas in Tokyo. Surface temperatures, heat flux, mean air temperatures, and mean
impact index (an index developed by the authors to show the temperature rise at
various points considered in the study) were studied for both the locations. The
study considered heat gain from building envelope, air conditioning, and traffic. The
ambient air temperature was measured at 1.5m from the road level to study the
thermal environment around the pedestrians. The results shows that, in Otemanchi,
which is high rise business district, the thermal conditions in the urban canyon
weren't much affected by the roof material. However, the mean air temperature
(MRT) was 0.2 0C lower than the MRT when the heat from traffic is considered. In
case of Kayobashi, which is a medium rise business district, the MRT in the urban
canyon is slightly lower (0.01 0C) when the roofs were green, and 0.37 0C lower
when the heat from traffic is considered. Thus, according to this study, green roof
on a low rise building might have a better impact on temperatures in urban canyon.
Smith and Roebber (Smith and Roebber 2011) used Weather Research and
Forecasting model coupled with a urban canopy model to simulate the local
atmosphere of Chicago. The model was calibrated to the observed temperatures on
a heat wave day. To study the affect of green roof, all roof tops in the urban domain
were changed to green roofs. This resulted in a decrease of about 3 0C in
temperature compared to the base run. However, the study simulated green roof
indirectly by just changing the roof albedo to 0.8, thus effectively simulating a white
roof. The affect of moisture, roughness, thermal inertia etc. are ignored. Including
these affects can lower the temperature decrease. Green roofs add moisture to the
atmosphere through transpiration. This could increase the apparent temperature as
well.
Sailor and Dietsch (Sailor and Dietsch 2007) use regional climate model MM5
for 20 cities across US to study the affect of green roof in mitigating the UHI using
similar method as (Rosenzweig, Solecki, and Slosberg 2006). However, green roofs

October 01, 2013

Heat Island
Surekha Tetali

Summary 2: Effect of Vegetation on Urban

48-722 Building Performance Modeling

are simulated indirectly by increasing roof albedo, moisture availability, roughness,

and thermal inertia of a regular roof. It is observed that increasing green roof cover
to 10% of the city can lower the temperature by 0.22 - 0.58 0C in different cities.
The extent to which a green roof in lowers the ambient temperature at a
building level depends upon several factors, for example, the Leaf Area Index (LAI)
(Kumar and Kaushik 2005, Takebayashi and Moriyama 2007), climatic conditions
(temperature, wind, humidity) (Jim and He 2010, Tsang and Jim 2011). As the
performance of green roof changes at local level, it can change the extent to which
green roof can mitigate UHI at city level as well. The different computational
models in different cities with their own unique urban landscape and weather
reviewed in this summary show that green roofs can mitigate UHI. Moreover, the
cited references show that green roof on a low rise building might have a better
impact on temperatures in urban canyon.
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Penn State/NCAR mesoscale model (MM5). In NCAR Technical Note TN398+STR. .
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Heat Island
Surekha Tetali

Summary 2: Effect of Vegetation on Urban

48-722 Building Performance Modeling

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