Energy and Climate in the Urban Built Environment

6

The canyon effect

M. Santamouris,Department of Applied Physics, University of Athens

 

 

THE CLIMATE OF URBAN CANYONS

According to Oke's theory,¹ the air space above a city may be divided into the so-called urban air ‘canopy’ and the boundary layer over the city space called the ‘urban air dome’. The urban air canopy is the space bounded by the urban buildings up to their roofs. The urban canopy layer includes an unlimited number of microclimates generated by the various urban configurations. The specific climatic conditions at any given point within the canopy are determined by the nature of the immediate surroundings and, in particular, their ...