Assessing urbanization’s contribution to warming in mainland China using satellite-estimated air temperature data

Abstract

The global surface air temperature (Ta) has increased significantly in the past several decades. However, it remains disputable how much effect rapid urbanization has had on warming trends in mainland China. In this study, a gridded Ta dataset was created using satellite data. Then, a series of satellite-based methods to evaluate the contribution of urbanization to warming were developed. Subsequently, the contribution of urbanization to warming during 2001–2018 was estimated. The national average Ta was found to have increased significantly (0.23°C/decade) in mainland China. At the national scale, the contribution of urbanization to warming was negligible (less than 1%) since built-up areas account for only approximately 2.66% of the area of China. At the regional scale, the contribution of urbanization was also small in most areas and was even negative in some areas. At the local scale, the contributions of urbanization to warming were 53.18%, 54.30% and 47.25% for the mean, maximum and minimum Ta, respectively, averaged for 31 major cities. This study demonstrated that the contribution of urbanization to warming was significant at the local scale, while the contribution of urbanization to large-scale warming was limited. The contribution of urbanization was underestimated at the local scale but overestimated at the national and regional scales by many previous studies due to the sparse and uneven distribution of meteorological stations.

Rainstorm and high‐temperature disaster risk assessment of territorial space in Beijing, China

“…As the negative impacts of natural disasters continue to escalate globally due to population growth, climate change, and rapid urbanization, there is an urgent need for multi‐hazard risk‐based decision‐making in urban planning and design (Cremen et al, 2023). Some studies have shown that urbanization has a significant impact on rising temperature and rainstorm in local scale of China, and may even contribute more than 50% to the local temperature increase (Chao et al, 2020; Kong, 2020; Kong et al, 2020; Sun et al, 2016, 2019; Yao et al, 2021). Beijing, the capital of China, is located in the northwest end of the North China Plain at the intersection of the Taihang Mountain and the Yanshan Mountain, with the North China Plain and the Bohai Sea in the southeast.…”