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Long-term changes of meteorological conditions of urban heat island development in the region of Debrecen, Hungary

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Abstract

Meteorological conditions have a remarkable impact on urban climate similarly to other local and microscale climates. Clear skies and calm weather are advantageous for the development of the urban heat island (UHI). There are numerous studies on the spatial and temporal features of the phenomenon. Much less attention is paid, however, to the meteorological conditions of UHI development. The aim of the present paper is to reveal the characteristics of the changes in the frequencies of advantageous and disadvantageous meteorological conditions for UHI development on the basis of a 50-year-long time series. Meteorological condition categories of UHI development have been established on the basis of wind speed values, cloudiness, and precipitation ranging from advantageous to disadvantageous conditions. Frequencies of occurrence of condition categories of UHI development were determined first. Advantageous and moderately advantageous conditions were found to be dominant in the time series. Linear trend analysis revealed a significant increasing trend in the time series of advantageous conditions. Increase of the frequencies of advantageous conditions was analyzed for the years, seasons, and months of the study period as well. Spring and summer (April and June) produced significant increasing trends of frequencies of advantageous conditions, while winter (with the exception of February) and autumn did not show significant increase of those frequencies. Change-point analyses detected a significant increase in the frequency of advantageous conditions in the time series at the turn of 1981/1982 especially in the summer and spring months. Detected tendencies have negative effects on urban energy consumption: they contribute to the increase of air conditioning energy demand in the summer and do not decrease the energy demand of heating in the winter significantly.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments on this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Meteorology, University of Debrecen, Egyetem tér 1, 4032, Debrecen, Hungary

    Elemér László, Zsolt Bottyán & Sándor Szegedi

Authors
  1. Elemér László
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  2. Zsolt Bottyán
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  3. Sándor Szegedi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elemér László.

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The publication is supported by the TÁMOP-4.2.2.A-11/1/KONV-2012-0041 project.

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László, E., Bottyán, Z. & Szegedi, S. Long-term changes of meteorological conditions of urban heat island development in the region of Debrecen, Hungary. Theor Appl Climatol 124, 365–373 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1427-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1427-9

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