Microclimate investigation to study the behavior of urban heat islands in the city of Turin

Heatwaves are annually increasing in terms of intensity and frequency. In urban areas, the impact could be further exacerbated by the urban heat island (UHI) effect. This work carries out an urban microclimate analysis to evaluate the behavior of the UHI in the city of Turin during a Heatwave event. Turin is located in the North-West region of Italy, boarded by the Alps mountain ranges in the west and hills in the East. The study utilizes the WRF/MLUCM model and considers the heatwave period in June 2019 [2]. The high- resolution urban land use/land cover data is taken from local climate zone (LCZ) maps provided by the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) repository [3]. The simulation is validated with the data provided by ARPA meteorological stations located over the region[4]. The lower root mean squared error of air temperature and higher index of the agreement show that the simulation is in good agreement with the observational data. The model is then used to analyze the rural-urban temperature distributions over the diurnal cycle. According to the results, the city of Turin has higher near-surface UHI intensity during the night and early morning (with maximum intensity >3 degC), whereas the intensity is diminishing during the mid-day hours. The examination of near-surface air temperature shows that, at some particular day times, the air temperature of the city is less than its rural counterparts indicating a reduction of UHI during Heatwave events as observed by [5]