Impact of Extensive Urbanization on Summertime Rainfall in the Beijing Region and the Role of Local Precipitation Recycling

Abstract

In this study, we conducted nested high‐resolution simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with a single‐layer urban canopy model to investigate the impact of extensive urbanization on regional precipitation over the Beijing‐Tianjin‐Hebei region in China. The results showed that extensive urbanization decreased precipitation considerably over and downwind of Beijing city. The prevalence of impermeable urban land inhibits local evaporation that feeds moisture into the overlying atmosphere, decreasing relative humidity and atmospheric instability. The dynamic precipitation recycling model was employed to estimate the precipitation that originates from local surface evaporation and large‐scale advection of moisture. Results showed that about 11% of the urbanization‐induced decrease in total precipitation over the Greater Beijing Region and its surroundings was contributed by the decrease in local recycled precipitation, while the other part (89%) was due to decreasing large‐scale advected precipitation. Results suggest that the low evaporation from urban land surfaces not only reduces the supply of water vapor for local recycled precipitation directly but also decreases the convective available potential energy and hence the conversion efficiency of atmospheric moisture into rainfall. The urbanization‐induced variations in local recycled precipitation were found to be correlated with the net atmospheric moisture flux on a monthly time scale.

Impact of Lateral Terrestrial Water Flow on Land‐Atmosphere Interactions in the Heihe River Basin in China: Fully Coupled Modeling and Precipitation Recycling Analysis

“…Lateral terrestrial water flow‐induced changes in land‐atmosphere interactions are quantified with the recycling methods detailed in section . It is important to note that the estimated regional precipitation recycling rate depends on the specific method applied and is sensitive to various factors including the shape, location, and size of the domain of analysis, as well as the prevailing wind direction and orographic condition (Burde & Zangvil, ; Trenberth, ; Wang, Feng, et al, ). The bulk and E‐tagging methods used in this study are aiming at investigating the changes of the land‐atmosphere interactions induced by the consideration of the lateral terrestrial water flow, rather than quantifying uncertainty of estimated recycling rate caused by the well‐mixed atmosphere and no return flow assumptions (Arnault, Knoche, et al, ; Burde & Zangvil, ).…”

Urbanization in an Underdeveloped City—Nanning, China and its Impact on a Heavy Rainfall Event in July

“…China is undergoing a rapid urbanization process nationwide, and many studies (e.g., Liang & Ding, 2017; Wang et al, 2014; Wang et al, 2018; Yu & Liu, 2015) have demonstrated that urbanization has a great impact on weather and climate in mega cities of eastern China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. But rare studies pay attention to the urbanization effect induced by an underdeveloped city in western China.…”

“…The WRF model is the most state‐of‐the‐art mesoscale modeling system and widely used around the world, and the WRF model has been coupled with the Noah land surface model and a single‐layer urban canopy model (Kusaka et al, 2001). The coupled WRF/urban canopy model system has been successfully used in urban precipitation simulation (e.g., Wang et al, 2018; Zhong & Yang, 2015). The urban land cover parameterizations include as follows: The building heights are 10, 7.5, and 5.0 m for commercial, high‐intensity residential, and low‐intensity residential, respectively; the fraction of the urban landscape, which does not include the natural vegetation, is setting in default for 0.95 (commercial), 0.9 (high‐intensity residential), and 0.5 (low‐intensity residential).…”

“…A rapid urbanization process is undergoing in China in the recent 30 years. And impacts of urbanization on precipitation in mega cities over eastern China have been widely discussed by both data analyses and modeling studies, e.g., Beijing (Wang et al, 2018; Yu et al, 2017), Shanghai (Liang & Ding, 2017), and Guangzhou (Wang et al, 2014). However, urbanization effects are less concerned over western China due to the relative low‐level urbanization there (Wu & Yang, 2013).…”

Urbanization Impact on Regional Wind Stilling: A Modeling Study in the Beijing‐Tianjin‐Hebei Region of China

“…Although the impact of urbanization on the regional climate of the BTH region has been investigated extensively in recent years (Miao et al, 2009(Miao et al, , 2011Wang et al, 2012Wang et al, , 2015Wang et al, , 2018Xing et al, 2019;L. Yang et al, 2014;C.-L. Zhang et al, 2009), its associated impact on regional NSWS remains poorly quantified.…”