Abstract
While the land-surface temperature (LST) observed at meteorological stations has significantly increased over the previous few decades, it is still unclear to what extent urbanization has affected these positive trends. Based on the LST data recorded at an urban station in Shijiazhuang in North China, and two rural meteorological stations, the effect of urbanization at the Shijiazhuang station for the period 1965–2012 is examined. We find, (1) a statistically-significant linear trend in annual mean urban–rural LST difference of \(0.27\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\) \(\hbox {(10 year)}^{-1}\), with an urbanization contribution of 100% indicating that the increase in the annual mean LST at the urban station is entirely caused by urbanization. The urbanization effects in spring, summer and autumn on the trends of mean LST are also significant; (2) the urbanization effect is small for time series of the annual mean minimum LST, and statistically marginal for the trend in annual mean maximum LST [\(0.19\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\,\hbox {(10 year)}^{-1}\)]; (3) the urbanization effect on the annual mean diurnal LST range (\(\Delta {LST}\)) at the urban station is a strongly significant trend of \(0.23\,^{\circ }\hbox {C (10\,year)}^{-1}\), with an urbanization contribution of 21%. The urbanization effects on trends in the spring and autumn mean \(\Delta {LST}\) are also larger and more significant than for the other seasons; (4) the urbanization effects on the long-term LST trends are remarkably different from those on the near-surface air temperature at the same urban station. Nonetheless, the significant warming of the urban boundary layer is expected to affect the urban environment and ecosystems. However, the problem of data representativeness at an urban station for the monitoring and investigation of large-scale climate change remains.
References
Baker DG, Ruschy DL (1993) The recent warming eastern Minnesota shown by ground temperatures. Geophys Res Lett 20(5):371–374
Bian T, Ren GY, Zhang CH, Yan F (2012) Characteristics and change of urban heat island intensity in Shijiazhuang. J Nanjing Univ Inform Sci Technol 4(5):402–408
Bian T, Ren GY, Zhang BX, Zhang L, Yue YX (2015) Urbanization effect on long-term trends of extreme temperature indices at Shijiazhuang station, North China. Theor Appl Climatol 119(3–4):407–418
Birch AF (1948) The effects of Pleistocene climatic variations upon geothermal gradients. Am J Sci 246(12):729–760
Bodri L, Cermfik V (1998) Last 250 years climate reconstruction inferred from geothermal measurements in the Czech Republic. Tectonophysics 291(1–4):251–261
Brazel A, Selover N, Vose R, Heisler G (2000) The tale of two climates: baltimore and phoenix urban LTER sites. Clim Res 15:123–135
Cao GZ, Hou P, Mao XQ (2010) Impacts of urbanization on temporal and spatial characteristics of land surface temperature at Beijing. Meteorol Mon 36(3):19–26
Chen ZH, Wang HJ, Ren GY, Xiang H, Xue L (2005) Change of urban heat island intensity and its effect on regional temperature series: a case study in Hubei Province. Clim Environ Res 10(4):71–779
China Meteorological Administration (2003) The norms of surface meteorological observation (in Chinese). China Meteorological Press, Beijing, pp 85–86
Chu ZY, Ren GY (2005) Change in urban heat island magnitude and its effect on mean air temperature record in Beijing region. Acta Meteorologica Sinica 63(4):534–540
Chudnovsky A, Ben DE, Saaroni H (2004) Diurnal thermal behavior of selected urban objects using remote sensing measurements. Energy Buil 36:1063-1047
Feng JM, Wang YL, Ma ZG, Liu YH (2012) Simulating the regional impacts of urbanization and anthropogenic heat release on climate across China. J Clim 25(20):7187–7203
Guo J, Li MC, Liu DY (2009) Effects of urbanization on temperature of Tianjin in recent 40 years. Ecol Environ Sci 18(1):29–34
Harris RN, Chapman DS (1997) Borehole temperatures and a baseline for 20th-century global warming estimates. Science 275(5306):1618–1621
He YT, Jia GS, Hu YH, Zhou ZJ (2013) Detecting urban warming signals in climate records. Adv Atmos Sci 30:1143–1153
Jian J, Yu JH, Da Q (2006) Temporal and spatial variations of ground temperature over Qinghai-Tibet Plateau for the Last 30 years. Meteorol Mon 32(2):64–69
Lachenbruch AH, Marehall BV (1986) Changing climate: geothermal evidence from permafrost in the Alaskan Arctic. Science 234(4777):689–696
Li DL, Qing QB, Tang CM (2005) The time-space variety characteristics of the surface temperature over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Sci Rev Technol 1:18–22
Li XM, Sun YH, Meng D, Yu J, Li XJ (2013) Changes of land surface temperature and its response to urbanization under the extreme high-temperature background in recent ten years of Beijing. Acta Ecologica Sinica 33(20):6694–6703
Li YK, Chao JP, Kuang GX (2015) Dynamic and thermodynamic analysis of the urban heat island effect and aerosol concentration. Chin J Geophys 58(3):729–740. doi:10.6038/cjp20150303
Lin MC, Li LP (2011) Long-term change of ground temperature in the Shiyang River Basin. Arid Zone Res 28(3):478–484
Lu XB, Xu HM, Sun CH, He JH (2006) Characteristics of soil temperature variations in China in recent 50 Years. J Nanjing Inst Meteorol 29(5):706–712
Mareschal JC, Beltrami H (1992) Evidence for recent warming from perturbed geothermal gradients: examples from eastern Canada. Clim Dyn 6(3–4):135–143
Pataki DE, Alig RJ, Fung AS, Golubiewski NE, Kennedy CA, Mcpherson EG, Nowak DJ, Pouyat RV, Romero Lankao P (2006) Urban ecosystems and the North American carbon cycle. Glob Change Biol 12:2092–2102
Pouyat RV, Pataki DE, Belt KT, Groffman PM, Hom J, Band LE (2007) Effects of urban land-use change effects on biogeochemical cycles. In: Canadell JG et al (eds) Terrestrial ecosystems in a changing world. global change: the IGBP Ser. Springer, Berlin, pp 45–58
Ren GY, Zhou YQ, Chu ZY, Zhou JX, Zhang AY, Guo J, Liu X (2008) Urbanization effect on observed surface air temperature trend in North China. J Clim 21:1333–1350
Ren GY, Zhou YQ (2014) Urbanization effect on trends of extreme temperature indices of national stations over mainland China, 1961–2008. J Clim 27(6):2340–2360
Ren YY, Ren GY, Zhang AY (2010) An overview of researches of urbanization effect on land surface temperature trends. Prog Geogr 29(11):1301–1310
Ren GY, Ding YH, Zhao ZC, Zheng JY, Wu TW, Tang GL, Ying XU (2012) Recent progress in studies of climate change in China. Adv Atmos Sci 29(5):958–977
Ren GY, Ren YY, Li QX, Xu WH (2014) An overview on global land surface air temperature change. Adv Earth Sci 29(8):934–946
Shi B, Tang CS, Gao L, Jiang HT, Liu C (2012) Differences in shallow soil temperature at urban and rural areas. J Eng Geol 20(1):58–65
Shi GY, Dai T, Tan SC, Sheng YB, Wang B, Zhao JQ (2010) Preliminary estimate of the global average annual climate forcing resulted from anthropogenic heat release. Adv Clim Change Res 6(2):119–122
Tang CM, Sun SH, Zhong Q (1982) Energy storage of the underlying surface and weather change. Plateau Meteorol 1(1):24–33
Wang BJ, Shi B, Jiang HT, Zhao LZ (2009) Characteristics of ground temperature variations in superficial soil layers for Nanjing in recent 30 Years. Geol J China Univ 15(2):199–205
Wang F, Ge QS (2012) Estimation of urbanization bias in observed surface temperature change in China from 1980 to 2009 using satellite land-use data. Chinese Sci Bull 57(14):1708–1715
Wei FY (2007) Diagnosis and forecasting methods of modern climate statistics, 2nd edn. China Meteorological Press, Beijing
Yang X, Hou Y, Chen B (2011) Observed surface warming induced by urbanization in east China. J Geophys Res 116:D14113. doi:10.1029/2010JD015452
Yang YJ et al. (2012) Impacts of urbanization and station-relocation on surface air temperature series in Anhui Province, China. Pure Appl Geophys 170:1969–1983
Zhang AY, Ren GY, Zhou JX, Chu ZY, Ren YY, Tang GL (2010) On the urbanization effect on surface air temperature trends over China. J Meteorol Res 68(6):957–966
Zhang CH, Zhang WY, Bian T, Han JC (2012) Characteristics of ground temperature change in Shijiazhuang of Hebei Province. J Arid Meteorol 30(1):27–33
Zhang CH, Zhang WY, Guo LP (2013a) Characteristics of shallow layer ground temperature change in Shijiazhuang of Hebei Province. J Arid Meteorol 31(1):78–81
Zhang CH, Zhang WY, Qi XH (2013b) Vertical variations of ground temperature in Shijiazhuang. Meteorol Hydrol Mar Instrum 2:41–44
Zhang L, Ren GY, Ren YY (2015) Identification of urban effect on a single extreme high temperature event. Clim Environ Res 20(2):167–176
Zhuo G, Deji YZ, Puby CR (2009) Studies on temporal/spatial distribution and abnormal types of land surface temperature over Tibet. J Arid Land Resour Environ 23(6):65–71
Acknowledgements
This study was financed by the China Natural Science Foundation (CNSF) (Fund No: 41575003) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Fund No: GYHY201206012). We appreciate the technical help of Dr. Yuanjian Yang.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bian, T., Ren, G. & Yue, Y. Effect of Urbanization on Land-Surface Temperature at an Urban Climate Station in North China. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 165, 553–567 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-017-0282-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-017-0282-x