2 Apr (CLIM) Li, Urban Climate

Cathy Li, Pacific Northwestern National Laboratory 

Urban Climate-Energy Interactions from Global to Local Scales 

Wed, 2 Apr, 1:30pm 

Innovation 134 and via Zoom (for link, email bklinger@gmu.edu) 

Host: Luis Ortiz 

Our climate and energy systems are closely intertwined through complex interactions. Urban energy consumption both drives and is affected by anthropogenic climate change. Previous studies have predominantly examined the global scale interactions between energy use and future warmer climates. However, the local scale interactions between urban energy use and the urban climates are frequently ignored in future energy projections, due to methodological, scale, and computational challenges. These local interactions can have global scale effects. In this talk, I will first show that ignoring such interactions underestimates climate-driven energy risks on global to local scales, which necessitates explicit and dynamic modeling of urban climate–energy interactions for climate-sensitive energy planning. I will then discuss several recent advancements in global urban energy modeling in Earth system models, which help unveil the effects of socioeconomic development, changing humidity conditions, as well as large-scale building electrification on urban climates and energy demand in a changing climate.