Abstract
Heat island is the main product of urban climate, and one of the important problems of twenty-first century. Cities in tropical countries suffer extensively due to the urban heat island effect, and urban climate studies are necessary to improve the comfort level and city planning. Chennai is the tropical city; it is the fourth largest metropolis in India and one of the fastest growing economic and industrial growth centers in South Asia. The spatial distribution of heat intensity in Chennai Metropolitan Area was studied, and the influence of land use and green cover were analyzed in the present work. Mobile measurements were carried out throughout the study area using a grid network to represent various land use patterns of the city. The study revealed some heat and cool pockets within the city limit; the maximum intensities of temperature were noticed in the central core city and north Chennai, which are distinguished for their commercial centers and densely populated residential areas. In morning time, temperature differences between fringes and central parts of heat packets were in the range of 3–4.5 °C. Land use and green cover play a critical role in microclimate and influences it. Green cover has a significant negative correlation with observed microclimate variations. Thus, the study urges city administration, policy makers, and architects to take up effective mitigation and adaptation strategies in the city to make people more comfortable.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahmed KS (2003) Comfort in urban spaces; defining the boundaries of outdoor thermal comfort for the tropical urban environments. Energ Build 35(1):103–110
Amirtham LR, Monsingh DD (2008) Assessing the intensity of urban heat island effect in the hot humid city of Chennai. Int J Design Manuf Technol 2(1):92–99
Ansar S, Dhanya CR, Thomas G, Chandran A, John L, Prasanthi S, Vishnu R, Zachariah EJ (2012) A study of urban/rural cooling rates in Thiruvananthapuram. Kerala J Ind Geophys Union 16:29–36
Borbora J, Das AK (2014) Summertime Urban Heat Island study for Guwahati City, India. Sustainable Cities and Society 11:61–66. doi:10.1016/j.scs.2013.12.001
Chen XL, Zhao HM, Li PX, Yin ZY (2006) Remote sensing image-based analysis of the relationship between urban heat island and land use/cover changes. Remote Sens Environ 104:133–146
Chow WTL, Roth M (2006) Temporal dynamics of urban heat island in Singapore. Int J Climatol 26:2243–2260
Cihlar J, St Laurent L, Dyer JA (1991) The relation between normalized difference vegetation index and ecological variables. Remote Sens Environ 35:279–298
CMDA II Master plan (2008) Chapter 2 Development Planning in Chennai Metropolitan Area. Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority IInd Master plan http://www.cmdachennai.gov.in/Volume3_English_PDF/Vol3_Chapter02_Development%20planning%20in%20CMA.pdf
Demographia (2013) World Urban Areas (World Agglomerations). 9th Annual Edition, pp 1–173
Emmanuel R, Johansson E (2006) Influence of urban morphology and sea breeze on hot humid microclimate: the case of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Clim Res 30:189–200
Gallo KP, McNab AL, Karl TR, Brown JF, Hood JJ, Tarpley JD (1993) The use of a vegetation index for assessment of the urban heat island effect. Int J Remote Sens 14:2223–2230
Gillies RR, Carlson TN (1995) Thermal remote sensing of surface soil water content with partial vegetation cover for incorporation into climate models. J Appl Meteorol 34:745–756
Gomez F, Gaja E, Reig A (1998) Vegetation and climatic changes in a city. Ecol Eng 10:355–360
Gray TI, Tapley DB (1985) Vegetation health: nature’s climate monitor. Adv Space Res 5:371–377
Grimm NB, Faeth SH, Golubiewski NE, Redman CL, Wu J, Bai X, Briggs JM (2008) Global change and the ecology of cities. Science 319:756–760. doi:10.1126/science.1150195
Grossman-Clarke S, Zehnder JA, Stefanov WL, Liu Y, Zoldak MA (2005) Urban modifications in a mesoscale meteorological model and the effects on near-surface variables in an arid metropolitan region. J Appl Meteorol 44:1281–1297
Harlan SL, Anthony J, Brazel LP, William L, Stefanov LL (2006) Neighborhood microclimates and vulnerability to heat stress. Soc Sci Med 63:2847–2863. doi:10.1016/j. socscimed.2006.07.030
Huang J, Akari H, Taha H, Rosenfeld A (1987) The potential of vegetation in reducing summer cooling loads in residential buildings. J Clim Appl Meteorol 26:1103–1106
Jayanthi N (1991) Heat Island study over Madras city and neighbourhood. Mausam 42(1):83–88
Jeganthan A, Andimuthu R (2013) Temperature trends of Chennai City, India. Theor Appl Climatol 111(3–4):417–425. doi:10.1007/s00704-012-0646-6
Kalnay E, Cai M (2003) Impact of urbanization and land use change on climate. Nature 423:528–531
Lo CP, Quattrochi DA, Luvall JC (1997) Application of high-resolution thermal infrared remote sensing and GIS to assess the urban heat island effect. Int J Remote Sens 18:287–304
Mallick J, Kant Y, Bharath BD (2008) Estimation of land surface temperature over Delhi using Landsat-7 ETM+. J Ind Geophys Union 12(3):131–140
Merbitz H, Buttstädt M, Michael S et al (2012) GIS-based identification of spatial variables enhancing heat and poor air quality in urban areas. Appl Geogr 33:94–106. doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2011.06.008
Mohan M, Kikegawa Y, Gujar B, Bhati S, Kandya A, Ogawa K (2012) Urban heat island assessment for a tropical urban air shed in India. Atmos Clim Scie 2:127–138. doi:10.4236/acs.2012.22014
Mookken M, Joy PM, Narayanan N (2011) Analysis of spatial variation of ambient air temperature’, Geospatial World. http://www.geospatialworld.net/Paper/Technology/ArticleView.aspx?aid=2501
Nasrallah HA, Brazel AJ, Balling RC Jr (1990) Analysis of the Kuwait city urban heat island. Int J Climatol 10:401–405
Nemani RR, Running SW (1989) Estimation of regional surface resistance to evapotranspiration from NDVI and thermal-IR AVHRR data. J Appl Meteorol 28:276–284
Nichol JE (1996) High-resolution surface temperature patterns related to urban morphology in a tropical city; a satellite-based study. J Appl Meteorol 28:276–284
Oke TR (1973) City size and the urban heat island. Atmos Environ 7:769–779
Oke TR (1982) The energetic basis of the urban heat island. Q J R Met Soc 108:1–24
Oke TR (1997) Applied climatology: principles and practices, Perry A, Thompson R, Eds. (Routledge, London), pp. 273–287
Oke T, Johnson G, Steyn D, Watson I (1991) Simulation of surface urban heat island under ‘Ideal’ conditions. Part 2: diagnosis of causation. Bound-Layer Meteorol 56:339–358
Owen TW, Carlson TN, Gillies RR (1998) An assessment of satellite remotely sensed land cover parameters in quantitatively describing the climatic effect of urbanization. Int J Remote Sens 19:1663–1681
Padmanabamurthy B, Bahl HD (1982) Some physical features of heat and humidity islands at Delhi. Mausam 33(2):211–216
Parker DE (2010) Urban heat island effects on estimates of observed climate change. WIREs Clim Chang 1:123–133
Ramachandra TV, Kumar U (2010) Greater Bangalore: emerging urban heat island. GIS Development, The Geospatial Resource Portal. http://www.gisdevelopment.net/application/urban/sprawl/ Greater-Bangalore-Emerging-Urban-H…
Rizwan AM, Leung DYC, Liu C (2008) A review on the generation, determination and mitigation of urban heat island. J Environ Sci 20(1):120–128. doi:10.1016/S1001-0742 (08)60019-4
Roth M (2007) Review of urban climate research in (sub)tropical regions. Int J Climatol 27:1859–1873
Sekar SP, Kanchanamala S (2011) An analysis of growth dynamics in Chennai Metropolitan area. Inst Town Plan India J 8–4:31–57
Sen Roy S, Singh RB, Kumar M (2011) An analysis of local-spatial temperature patterns in the Delhi metropolitan area. Phys Geogr 32:114–138
Sham S (1987) The urban heat island –its concept and application to Kuala Lumpur. In Urbanization and the atmospheric environment in low tropics: experiences from Kelang valley region, Malaysia. (Eds.) Sham S, Pernerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumbur, pp. 242-253
Shetty MA, Somashekar RK (2014) Assessment of vegetation cover through NDVI, Bangalore India. Indian J Appl Res 4(3):176–197
Souch C, Grimmond S (2006) Applied climatology: urban climate. Prog Phys Geogr 30:270–279
Srivatsava AK, Sinha Roy KC, Yadav RV (2001) Is summer becoming more uncomfortable over major cities of India. Curr Sci 18(4):342–344
Sudipta S, Menas K (2004) Interannual variability of vegetation over the Indian sub-continent and its relation to the different meteorological parameters. Remote Sensing of Environment 90:268–280
von Stulpnagel A, Horbert M, Sukopp H (1990) The importance of vegetation for the urban climate. In: Sukopp H, Hejny S, Kowarik I (eds) Urban ecology. SPB Academic Publishing, The Hague, pp 175–193
Wanner H, Hertig J (1984) Studies of urban climates and air pollution in Switzerland. J Appl Meteorol 23:1614–1625
Weng Q (2001) A remote sensing–GIS evaluation of urban expansion and its impact on surface temperature in the Zhujiang Delta. China Int J Remote Sens 22(10):1999–2014
Weng Q, Lu D, Schubring J (2004) Estimation of land surface temperature–vegetation abundance relationship for urban heat island studies. Remote Sens Environ 89:467–483
Yang XC, Zhang YL, Liu LS, Zhang W, Ding MJ, Wang ZF (2009) Sensitivity of surface air temperature change to land use/cover types in China. Sci China Ser D Earth Sci 52(8):1207–1215. doi:10.1007/s11430-009-0085-0
Yue W, Xu J, Tan W, Xu L (2007) The relationship between land surface temperature and NDVI with remote sensing: application to Shanghai Landsat 7 ETM+ data. Int J Remote Sens 28(15):3205–3226
Zsolt Bottya NA, Andrea Kircsi BSA, Szegedib N, Unger J (2005) The relationship between built-up areas and the spatial development of the mean maximum urban heat island in Debrecen. Hung Int J Climatol 25:405–418. doi:10.1002/joc.1138
Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to research scholars at the Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research, Anna University, Chennai, for their full support during data collection. The authors are also thankful to Dr. N. Jayanthi, formerly Additional Director General of Meteorology, IMD and Dr.S.R. Ramanan, Director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, RMC, Chennai for their expert opinion and suggestions to this work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jeganathan, A., Andimuthu, R., Prasannavenkatesh, R. et al. Spatial variation of temperature and indicative of the urban heat island in Chennai Metropolitan Area, India. Theor Appl Climatol 123, 83–95 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-014-1331-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-014-1331-8