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Reassessment of urbanization effect on surface air temperature trends at an urban station of North China

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Abstract

Based on a homogenized data set of monthly mean temperature, minimum temperature, and maximum temperature at Shijiazhuang City Meteorological Station (Shijiazhuang station) and four rural meteorological stations selected applying a more sophisticated methodology, we reanalyzed the urbanization effects on annual, seasonal, and monthly mean surface air temperature (SAT) trends for updated time period 1960–2012 at the typical urban station in North China. The results showed that (1) urbanization effects on the long-term trends of annual mean SAT, minimum SAT, and diurnal temperature range (DTR) in the last 53 years reached 0.25, 0.47, and − 0.50 °C/decade, respectively, all statistically significant at the 0.001 confidence level, with the contributions from urbanization effects to the overall long-term trends reaching 67.8, 78.6, and 100%, respectively; (2) the urbanization effects on the trends of seasonal mean SAT, minimum SAT, and DTR were also large and statistically highly significant. Except for November and December, the urbanization effects on monthly mean SAT, minimum SAT, and DTR were also all statistically significant at the 0.05 confidence level; and (3) the annual, seasonal, and monthly mean maximum SAT series at the urban station registered a generally weaker and non-significant urbanization effect. The updated analysis evidenced that our previous work for this same urban station had underestimated the urbanization effect and its contribution to the overall changes in the SAT series. Many similar urban stations were being included in the current national and regional SAT data sets, and the results of this paper further indicated the importance and urgency for paying more attention to the urbanization bias in the monitoring and detection of global and regional SAT change based on the data sets.

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Acknowledgements

This study is 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 constructive comments from three reviewers, and the help from Mr Panfeng Zhang in evaluating the impact of serial correlation on estimate of urbanization effect in the urban data series.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shijiazhuang Meteorological Bureau, Shijiazhuang, 050081, China

    Tao Bian

  2. Department of Atmospheric Science, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Tao Bian & Guoyu Ren

  3. Laboratory for Climate Studies, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration (CMA), Beijing, 100081, China

    Guoyu Ren

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  1. Tao Bian
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Correspondence to Guoyu Ren.

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Bian, T., Ren, G. Reassessment of urbanization effect on surface air temperature trends at an urban station of North China. Meteorol Atmos Phys 131, 237–250 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-017-0568-z

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