reference_temp_cnumberdefault: 30-10–50 (step 1)Ambient air temperature at the nearest airport or rural weather station.
This is the baseline against which UHI intensity is measured. Use the design-day temperature from your EPW file, or a climate-projection value for future scenarios.
analysis_hournumberdefault: 140–23 (step 1)Hour of day (0–23). UHI is strongest 1–4 hours after sunset (21:00–02:00) but peak discomfort typically occurs in the afternoon (14:00–16:00).
Afternoon (14:00) gives peak solar-driven UHI. Evening (22:00) shows the stored-heat UHI that affects nocturnal cooling and sleep quality.
albedo_pavementnumberdefault: 0.080.05–0.7 (step 0.05)Solar reflectance of street and plaza surfaces (0 = black, 1 = white).
Standard asphalt ≈ 0.05–0.10. Cool pavement (light concrete, high-albedo coating) ≈ 0.30–0.50. Increasing albedo by 0.2 typically reduces UHI intensity by 0.5–1.5 °C.
albedo_rooftopnumberdefault: 0.120.05–0.9 (step 0.05)Solar reflectance of rooftop surfaces.
Dark bitumen ≈ 0.05. White membrane ≈ 0.75. Cool roofs can reduce local UHI by 0.3–1.0 °C and cut building cooling loads by 10–20 %.
green_cover_fractionnumberdefault: -1-1–1 (step 0.05)Fraction of the district covered by vegetation (0–1). Leave at -1 to auto-compute from the environment layer.
Every 10% increase in green cover typically reduces UHI intensity by 0.3–0.8 °C through evapotranspiration cooling.
Run with defaults to establish the current UHI signature of the district. Design interventions to test: - Increase Rooftop Albedo to 0.75 to simulate a cool-roof retrofit campaign - Increase Green Cover to 0.30 to simulate a 30% canopy target - Combine both to estimate maximum mitigation potential The resulting localised temperatures feed directly into the Outdoor Thermal Comfort and Indoor Thermal Comfort models.