Cooling effect of urban parks and their relationship with urban heat islands

It is claimed that open spaces in cities, such as parks, have an urban cooling effect. However, the relationship between urban parks and adjacent districts is still not explicit. In order to clarify the interaction between urban parks and their urban surroundings, this paper takes the Temple of Heaven Park （THP） as an example of a park station and focuses on analyzing the differences with a nearby urban station.THP is located in the center of Beijing, and the nearest urban station is Tian An Men. It is interesting that the cooling effect of THP reaches a peak and remains stable when its city background urban heat island （UHI） varies within a given range, but becomes unstable when the UHI goes beyond the range. This is called an enhanced cooling effect in this paper. As a result, the UHi intensities （UHIIs） are calculated in order to comprehend the role of the park cooling effect in the urban heating characteristics of Beijing. By comparison with five other park-district pairs, this paper attempts to identify the causes of the enhanced cooling effect. It is found that six park-district pairs consistently demonstrate a persistently stronger cooling rate during the night, and that the water coverage might be a key factor in enhancing the park cooling effect. Based on further investigation of the influence of surrounding UHIs on the park cooling effect, it is found that the UHII differences in park-district pairs show quasi-linear changes within a given range as the UHli of the surrounding district increases.

为了揭示城市中公园和其周边城市环境的相互关系,本文以位于北京二环以内的天坛站为例,重点分析天坛站对最邻近城市站(天安门站)的冷岛效应。研究发现,当城市公园中的周边环境热岛强度在一定的范围内变化时,城市公园站的降温作用是比较稳定的,当城市热岛强度超过了某一临界阈值后,公园的降温作用就变得不稳定,本文将这种现象称为"冷岛增强效应"(enhanced cooling effect)。研究中选取了北京城区内六组公园-城市站,进行公园冷岛效应的进一步研究,发现水体、绿地等要素是影响冷岛作用的重要因素。