Effects of Future Urban Expansion and Climate Change on the Atmospheric Thermal Environment in the Chicago Metropolitan Area

Urban expansion and climate change change significantly impact the regional thermal environment. The research proposes here examines how alternations of urban land use and anthropogenic heat emissions and future climate change impact the atmospheric thermal environment over Chicago areas. This study is explored by using Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with Building Environment Parameterization and Building Energy Model (BEP+BEM). Preliminary results show that the significant changes in surface temperature, near-surface temperature and heat index due to future urban expansion. The expanded area has more increased temperature than previous existed urban area, which can be attributed to increased ground heat storage during the daytime and ground heat release during the nighttime.