ORIGINAL PAPER Estimating spatial and temporal patterns of urban anthropogenic heat fluxes for UK cities: the case of Manchester Claire Smith & Sarah Lindley & Geoff Levermore Received: 4 July 2008 / Accepted: 4 December 2008 # Springer-Verlag 2009 Abstract A model is proposed for determining the tempo- ral and spatial patterns of anthropogenic heat fluxes in UK urban areas. It considers buildings, traffic, and metabolic heat flux sources and has been evaluated to a good accuracy against alternative data for the Greater Manchester area in the UK. Results are presented at spatial resolution of 200 × 200 m although the model itself is scalable depending on data availability. In this paper, results are generated using a set of urban morphology units so that detailed and time- consuming accounting of individual building and road emissions is not required. The model estimates a mean heat emission of 6.12 Wm -2 across Greater Manchester, with values in the region of 10 Wm -2 for non central urbanized areas and 23 Wm -2 in city center areas. Despite this difference, the results are not described by a simple distance decay function, as has been reported for other cities, due to the influence of satellite towns and the influence of the road network. Buildings are the dominant emitter, contributing some 60% of total emissions across the city compared to around 32% for road traffic and 8% for metabolic sources. 1 Introduction Traditionally, urban heat island research has focused primarily on the urban-rural contrast in albedo, heat capacity, moisture, and surface roughness. However, there is a growing body of research concerned with the impact of anthropogenic thermal pollution upon the dynamics of the urban boundary layer. While the amount of energy released as a result of anthropogenic activities is a tiny fraction of the energy from the sun intercepted by the earth on a global scale, it is recognized that human energy production density can be substantially higher in urban regions, thus contrib- uting significantly to the local heat island phenomenon (Crutzen 2004). Indeed, by employing a detailed energy consumption inventory approach, several studies have shown a non-negligible contribution from anthropogenic heating to the urban environment. The effect is particularly pronounced during winter, with maximum, localized esti- mates ranging from 100 Wm -2 in central London (Harrison et al. 1984) up to 1,590 Wm -2 in central Tokyo (Ichinose et al. 1999). More recent estimates from London energy consumption data suggest annual heat emissions for the central City of London borough have risen to 135 Wm -2 (GLA 2007). The impact of energy consumed as a result of anthropo- genic activities is estimated to lead to a 1–3°C augmenta- tion of the heat island effect (Fan and Sailor 2005). Data from aggregate energy consumption statistics suggest a mean annual anthropogenic heat flux of 20 to 160 Wm -2 when spatially averaged across large cities. Estimates for US cities range between 20 and 40 Wm -2 in summer and between 70 and 210 Wm -2 in winter (Taha 1997). This seasonal disparity may, however, become less pronounced for the UK and other Northern European areas under future climate projections, as summer cooling loads become Theor Appl Climatol DOI 10.1007/s00704-008-0086-5 C. Smith (*) : S. Lindley School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, UKM13 9PL e-mail: claire.smith-2@manchester.ac.uk G. Levermore School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, PO Box 88, Manchester, UKM60 1QD