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Impact of urban heat island on daily and sub-daily monsoon rainfall variabilities in East Asian megacities

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Abstract

This study evaluates the impact of the urban heat island (UHI) on the daily and sub-daily monsoon rainfall variabilities in East Asian megacities using the high-resolution ground- and satellite-based observations for the period of 1998–2015. The three representative megacity regions, i.e., Guangdong in China, Seoul/Gyeonggi in Korea, and Tokyo in Japan, are particularly considered. A strong UHI day, defined as a summer day with UHI index greater than one standard deviation, is typically drier than normal especially in the urban area. However, when rainy, a distinct rainfall peak appears in the early afternoon, contrasting to the climatological rainfall distribution with a maximum rainfall in the early morning and a secondary maximum in the late afternoon. A stronger early-afternoon rainfall in the urban area than in the rural area becomes more pronounced as UHI intensity increases beyond a certain threshold value. The UHI-induced extreme rainfall in the afternoon, which is larger than climatology, is also robustly found in all three megacity regions. The impact of the UHI on extreme rainfall is the largest in Tokyo (55–75%), followed by Seoul/Gyeonggi (35–65%) and Guangdong (25–50%). Such regional difference can be partly explained by the difference in the geographical location and urbanization progress. This result suggests that East Asian megacities are likely prone to more extreme UHI-induced rainfall with accelerated urbanization.

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Data availability

The raw dataset of APHRODITE-grid temperature and precipitation used in this study can be accessed at http://aphrodite.st.hirosaki-u.ac.jp/members.html. The GRUMPv1 and DMSP/OSL nighttime light datasets are also accessed, respectively, at https://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/set/grump-v1-urban-extents and https://ngdc.noaa.gov/eog/dmsp/downloadV4composites.html.

Code availability

The source code of analysis used in this study can be available to request to the first author, Seok-Geun Oh (seokgeunoh@snu.ac.kr) with reasonable justification.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the research groups for making the dataset used in this study, APHRODITE, TMPA, and DMSP-OLS grid observation datasets. This study is supported by the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program under Grant KMI2020-01010-1. This study is also supported by “Development of Advanced Science and Technology for Marine Environmental Impact Assessment” of Korea Institute of Marine Science & Technology Promotion (KIMST) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (KIMST-20210427).

Funding

This study is supported by the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program under Grant KMI2020-01010-1. This study is also supported by “Development of Advanced Science and Technology for Marine Environmental Impact Assessment” of Korea Institute of Marine Science & Technology Promotion (KIMST) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (KIMST-20210427).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Seok-Geun Oh & Seok-Woo Son

  2. Korea Institute of Atmospheric Prediction Systems, Seoul, South Korea

    Ji-Young Han

  3. Division of Environmental Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Gyeongbuk, South Korea

    Seung-Ki Min

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  1. Seok-Geun Oh
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by SO. The first draft of the manuscript was written by SO, JH, SM, and SS and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Seok-Woo Son.

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Oh, SG., Han, JY., Min, SK. et al. Impact of urban heat island on daily and sub-daily monsoon rainfall variabilities in East Asian megacities. Clim Dyn 61, 19–32 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06556-y

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