Sea Breeze Cooling Power in the Adelaide Metropolitan Area

Author: Saeedeh Gharib Choobary

Gharib Choobary, Saeedeh, 2017 Sea Breeze Cooling Power in the Adelaide Metropolitan Area, Flinders University, School of the Environment

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Abstract

Coastal cities, such as Adelaide in South Australia located approximately 10 km to the east of St Vincent Gulf, benefit from sea breeze cooling in summer months. Although the kinematics and dynamics of sea breeze and its interaction with urban climate have been widely studied in the literature, quantitative analysing the cooling role of sea breeze has been unattended. The sea breeze occurrence and cooling effect during its inland progress to the Adelaide Central Business District (CBD) are investigated using high spatial and temporal resolution meteorological data during the summer months between 2010 and 2013. A new approach to quantify the sea breeze cooling effect of is presented by introducing a quantitative parameter, Sea Breeze Cooling Power (SBCP), with the unit of °C•min. The results indicate that a declining trend in the Cumulative Sea Breeze Cooling Power (CSBCP) during the sea breeze inland advance for all summer months at an average rate of -45.5 °C.min/km inland from the coastline, with an average effective penetration depth of 13.8 km. Moreover, December shows the highest CSBCP, followed by January, February and March, respectively. Also, in the Adelaide CBD the frequency of the sea breeze cooling at a 30-minute time interval is significantly higher in noon and early afternoon compared to the morning time for all the months. In addition, the average of daily maximum cooling due to the sea breeze passage (dTmax ) in January, February and December is as significant as 1°C in the Adelaide CBD. The dTmax in CBD is reduced by almost 50 percent in March compared to other summer months.

Keywords: Sea Breeze, Urban Climate, Sea Breeze Cooling Power

Subject: Environmental Science thesis

Thesis type: Masters
Completed: 2017
School: School of the Environment
Supervisor: Dr Huade Guan