Variation of regional circulations due to long-term change of land use in the Daegu metropolitan region for 100 years

The urbanization of Daegu metropolitan region has progressed rapidly over the last 100 years, but changing land-use resulting from that urbanization has also caused the regional circulations to evolve. The effect of 100 years of urbanization on the regional circulations was simulated for the analysis using an A2C (Atmosphere to Computational Fluid Dynamics) model. Calm synoptic conditions and a stable lapse rate were assumed for the initial model atmosphere, with a horizontal grid resolution of 1 km. The simulation demonstrated that land-use changes have affected the Daegu metropolitan area’s regional circulations by deepening the convective boundary layer (CBL) over the urbanized area, resulting in deviations from mean surface temperature and surface wind fields. The last 100 years have seen the following changes in the region: 1) the urbanized area has increased by around 15 times, while the number of forests and paddy fields has rapidly decreased; 2) surface wind speeds have decreased by about 25% and 35% during the day and at night, respectively, and severe changes in wind direction have been noted over the urbanized areas; 3) regional warming has been around 1.5°C and 4°C in the daytime and early morning hours, respectively (in particular, warming in the early morning hours suggests the presence of overnight heat islands), and 4) sensible heat flux and CBL height have increased by about 40 W m−2 and 500 m for the period, respectively.