Simulating Heatwave in Urban Environments: A Case Study of Villa Ada, Rome, during October 2023

A persistent high-pressure system characterized the first fifteen days of October 2023 in Italy. In particular, during October 11th and 12th the city of Rome was particularly affected by the influx of warm dry air and the consequent heatwave marked with moderate to calm wind speeds. The increasing frequency of such episodes demands a profound understanding of the interplay between Atmospheric flow, temperature field, particulate dispersion and urban environment texture and its consequence on the human health. In the framework of a broader project (PNRR-NBFC) this study aims to assess the spatial variability and heterogeneity of the air temperature, humidity, PM2.5 and PM10 fields in the Villa Ada neighborhood in Rome during 4 days (8th-11th October 2023). Villa Ada owes its name to a densely vegetated park surrounded by intense traffic roads. This makes it the ideal spot to study the interaction between vegetated canopy and the urban environment, investigating the influence of trees on particle dispersion through deposition processes. The atmospheric model MOLOCH is coupled to the PALM-4U model with two nested domains to simulate the wind, turbulence and scalar fields. These simulations will provide substantial insight for two field campaigns planned for late 2024.