Urban heat island (UHI) effects can strengthen heat waves and air pollution episodes. In this study, the dampening impact of urban trees on the UHI during an extreme heat wave in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, metropolitan area is examined by incorporating trees, soil, and grass into the coupled Weather Research and Forecasting model and an urban canopy model (WRF-UCM). By param...

Cities interact with the atmosphere over a wide range of scales from the large-scale processes, which have a direct impact on global climate change, to smaller scales, ranging from the conurbation itself to individual buildings. The review presented in this paper analyzes some of the ways in which cities influence atmospheric thermodynamics and airborne pollutant transport. We present the main ...

Air pollution in urban environments has serious health and quality of life implications. A wide variety of anthropogenic air pollution sources increase the levels of background air pollutant concentrations, leading to the deterioration of the ambient air quality. Principal sources of urban air pollution are vehicular traffic, industrial activity and in general fossil fuel combustion, introducin...

In this investigation, a numerical model expressing advection and diffusion effects is used to examine air temperature rise in urban areas that are on the leeward side of green areas. The model results are then verified by comparison with measurement results. When the measurement point is at a distance of 30 m or more from a green area, the air temperature of the urban area is not affected by t...

Urban areas can be large emitters of air pollutants leading to negative health effects and environmental degradation. The rate of venting of these airsheds determines the pollutant loading for given emission levels, and also determines the regional impacts of the urban plume. Mexico City has approximately 20 million people living in a high altitude basin with air pollutant concentrations above ...

Geographical Information Systems (GISs) can be seen as a common tool to map and visualize the air quality index based on geographical locations. However, in urban areas, the area resolution for air quality models is less than 2 kilometres. Since the main emissions agent in urban areas is predominantly vehicular engines, the situation will become worse when pollutants are trapped between buildin...

Urban China’s high levels of ambient air pollution both lowers quality of life and raises mortality risk. China’s wealthy have the purchasing power to purchase private products such as air filters that allows them to offset some of the pollution exposure risk. Using a unique data set of Internet purchases, we document that households invest more in masks and air filter products when ambient pol...

[1] Measurements of anthropogenic hydrocarbons, ozone, and meteorological variables were obtained during the summer of 1997 near the University of California Blodgett Forest Research Station on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. These measurements and related observations obtained upwind in Sacramento and Folsom, California, by the California Air Resources Board and the National ...

Road dust and vehicle exhaust are the main sources of air pollution in cities, especially in recent years with the quantity of vehicles and transportation construction continuously soaring; the hazy weather has been a dominant urban pollution form which is widely concerned by the Chinese society. By establishing a relationship model between traffic and land use, then applying analytic hierarchy...

Urban particulate air pollution is a serious health issue. Trees within cities can remove fine particles from the atmosphere and consequently improve air quality and human health. Tree effects on PM2.5 concentrations and human health are modeled for 10 U.S. cities. The total amount of PM2.5 removed annually by trees varied from 4.7 tonnes in Syracuse to 64.5 tonnes in Atlanta, with annual value...