Smart wetting of permeable pavements as an evaporative-cooling measure for improving the urban climate during heat waves

An urban microclimate model is used to design a smart wetting protocol for multilayer street pavements in order to maximize the evaporative cooling effect as a mitigation measure for thermal discomfort during heat waves. The microclimate model is built upon a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for solving the turbulent air, heat and moisture flow in the air domain of a street canyon. The CFD model is coupled to a model for heat and moisture transport in porous urban materials and to a radiative exchange model, determining the net solar and thermal radiation on each urban surface. A two-layer pavement system, previously optimized for maximal evaporative cooling applying the principles of capillary pumping and capillary break, is considered to design a smart wetting protocol answering the questions “when,” “how much,” and “how long” a pavement should be artificially wetted. It was found for the current optimized pavement solutions that a daily amount of 6 mm wetting over 10 min in the morning, preferentially between 8:00 and 10:00, guarantees a maximal evaporative cooling for 24 h during a heat wave.

Energetics of Winter Troughs Entering South America

The energetics and behavior of midtropospheric troughs over the Southern Hemisphere and their relationship with South America surface cyclogenesis were studied during the winters of 1999–2003. All surface cyclogenesis situations over Uruguay and adjacent areas associated with 500-hPa troughs were analyzed. The atmospheric circulation associated with type-B and type-C cyclones form the basis for two composites: composite B (with 25 cases) and composite C (with 13 cases). The results showed that the midtropospheric troughs were more intense in composite C than in composite B before the surface cyclogenesis and that the opposite occurred during the surface cyclogenesis. The baroclinic conversion was dominant in both composites. In composite B, the ageostrophic flux convergence (AFC) contributed positively to the intensification of the surface cyclone since it imported energy into the area before the cyclogenesis started. But in composite C, the AFC served as a sink because it exported energy. Based on these results, it can be concluded that (i) the trough was crucial for the cyclogenesis; (ii) the variables in the mid- and upper levels did not differ significantly from one composite to another; (iii) the northerly heat and moisture flow acted as a preconditioning for the cyclogenesis, mainly for composite C; (iv) the baroclinic conversion dominated the energetics; and (v) the AFC had only a secondary role, contributing negatively to the development of the cyclone in composite C and positively to the initial development in composite B.