Improvement of urban thermal environment by managing heat discharge sources and surface modification in Tokyo

This paper analyzes the implications of anthropogenic heat discharges into the urban thermal environment of Tokyo. Heat discharges by the representative office, commercial and residential buildings were simulated with the help of the DOE-2 building energy simulation model. The approach used in this paper also takes into account the heat storage within building structures. The geographical information system based technique was used to estimate the heat discharge distribution all over Tokyo. The mesoscale analyses of the urban climate were carried out with a model that was based on the Colorado State University Mesoscale Model. The improvements in the urban thermal environment via the various measures were analyzed for two types of scenarios, namely, scenarios related to the management of heat discharge sources and urban surface modifications. The maximum improvement in average temperature for daytime was found to be 0.47°C (at noon) as a result of greening the areas around the buildings of Tokyo. Similarly, the maximum improvement in average temperature for the evening was found to be 0.11°C by discharging all heat to the ground.