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Modeling the impact of urbanization on the local and regional climate in Yangtze River Delta, China

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Abstract

The Yangtze River Delta Economic Belt is one of the most active and developed areas in China and has experienced quick urbanization with fast economic development. The weather research and forecasting model (WRF), with a single-layer urban canopy parameterization scheme, is used to simulate the influence of urbanization on climate at local and regional scales in this area. The months January and July, over a 5-year period (2003–2007), were selected to represent the winter and summer climate. Two simulation scenarios were designed to investigate the impacts of urbanization: (1) no urban areas and (2) urban land cover determined by MODIS satellite observations in 2005. Simulated near-surface temperature, wind speed and specific humidity agree well with the corresponding measurements. By comparing the simulations of the two scenarios, differences in near-surface temperature, wind speed and precipitation were quantified. The conversion of rural land (mostly irrigation cropland) to urban land cover results in significant changes to near-surface temperature, humidity, wind speed and precipitation. The mean near-surface temperature in urbanized areas increases on average by 0.45 ± 0.43°C in winter and 1.9 ± 0.55°C in summer; the diurnal temperature range in urbanized areas decreases on average by 0.13 ± 0.73°C in winter and 0.55 ± 0.84°C in summer. Precipitation increases about 15% over urban or leeward areas in summer and changes slightly in winter. The urbanization impact in summer is stronger and covers a larger area than that in winter due to the regional east-Asian monsoon climate characterized by warm, wet summers and cool, dry winters.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is sponsored by Chinese NFS-Guangdong Joint Project (U0833001), LAPC Open Project Fund (LAPC-KF-2008-02) and the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, Chinese State Education Ministry. The authors thank the reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Ning Zhang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Ning Zhang & Zhiqiu Gao

  3. Department of Environmental Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Xuemei Wang

  4. Jiangsu Climate Center, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Yan Chen

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  1. Ning Zhang
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  2. Zhiqiu Gao
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  4. Yan Chen
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Correspondence to Xuemei Wang.

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Zhang, N., Gao, Z., Wang, X. et al. Modeling the impact of urbanization on the local and regional climate in Yangtze River Delta, China. Theor Appl Climatol 102, 331–342 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-010-0263-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-010-0263-1

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