Rapid cooling of urban surfaces during rainfall: physical basis, dominant energy fluxes, and sensitivity to pavement and rainfall properties

Using model for the heat transfer between pavements and runoff during rainfall, we investigate the importance of different pavement and rainfall properties, as well as crucial energy budget terms that drive the cooling processes. The results indicate that the pavement and runoff temperature and energy fluxes are very sensitive to the rain temperature. In addition, pavement albedo has a significant effect on the simulated temperature since it modifies the initial pavement temperature before the rain starts. The results also indicated that among the different energy budget terms, evaporation and long wave radiation are the main cooling terms, while the shortwave radiation dominates energy input into the runoff-pavement system.