Impact of the Urban Heat Island on light duty vehicle emissions for the phoenix, AZ Area

The sustainability of our planet is impacted as regions are transformed from rural to urban engineered infrastructures resulting in alterations at the surface and atmosphere. These changes are manifested in urban areas experiencing increased temperatures with respect to their rural counterparts, known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) Effect. The impact of the UHI on light duty gasoline vehicle emissions was modeled using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) MOBILE6 model. It is shown that the impact on exhaust running emissions as a yearly total is very small while evaporative emissions and starting emissions are increased and decreased throughout the year, respectively.