Disentangling the influences of atmospheric stability and urban form on local cooling in a high latitude city: evidence from Glasgow

Glasgow's local warming continues to rise despite slower urban growth, and overheating is expected to be as problematic in 2050 as it currently is in London. In light of the slow rate of urban transformation, strategies to mitigate the heat island phenomenon are needed to be in place now to tackle this emerging problem. Green infrastructure and the careful management of urban form appear to be the most promising approaches to managing local heat islands. However, the background climate itself has considerable local variations and disentangling the urban effects from variations caused by atmospheric conditions is not easy. In this work, we provide a detailed view of the local cooling effects of urban form under different atmospheric stability conditions. Atmospheric stability is estimated from a reference weather station set up for the purpose. Urban sites were chosen to be representative of the variations in vegetation and building geometry in the city and were measured using fixed- and traverse-type data collection. Based on the analysis of the intra-urban differences and land cover / building geometry attributes, we postulate a likely relationship between atmospheric conditions and local urban form in determining local microclimate in cold climate cities.