Review of recent studies of the climatic effects of urbanization in China

Yan, Zhimin; Wang, Jun; Xia, Junming; Feng, Jingyu

doi:10.1016/j.accre.2016.09.003

Cited by 104 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…Particularly, many previous studies used short‐term periods of less than 40 years to consider the limitation of observation data, but it should be noted that a shorter period generally induces larger uncertainties due to the stronger influence of natural internal variability and other local factors. Therefore, it is concluded that the urbanization contribution to the local warming trend in South Korea over a century‐long period is about 3–11% with maximum less than 15% for annual mean temperature, which is largely consistent with the recent updated assessment for China (e.g., Yan et al, ).…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long‐Term Warming Trends in Korea and Contribution of Urbanization: An Updated Assessment

et al. 2017

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This study conducted an updated analysis of the long‐term temperature trends over South Korea and reassessed the contribution of the urbanization effect to the local warming trends. Linear trends were analyzed for three different periods over South Korea in order to consider possible inhomogeneity due to changes in the number of available stations: recent 103 years (1912–2014), 61 years (1954–2014), and 42 years (1973–2014). The local temperature has increased by 1.90°C, 1.35°C, and 0.99°C during the three periods, respectively, which are found 1.4–2.6 times larger than the global land mean trends. The countries located in the northern middle and high latitudes exhibit similar warming trends (about 1.5 times stronger than the global mean), suggesting a weak influence of urbanization on the local warming over South Korea. Urbanization contribution is assessed using two methods. First, results from “city minus rural” methods showed that 30–45% of the local warming trends during recent four decades are likely due to the urbanization effect, depending on station classification methods and analysis periods. Results from an “observation minus reanalysis” method using the Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CR) data sets (v2 and v2c) indicated about 25–30% contribution of the urbanization effect to the local warming trend during the recent six decades. However, the urbanization contribution was estimated as low as 3–11% when considering the century‐long period. Our results confirm large uncertainties in the estimation of urbanization contribution when using shorter‐term periods and suggest that the urbanization contribution to the century‐long warming trends could be much lower.

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Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long‐Term Warming Trends in Korea and Contribution of Urbanization: An Updated Assessment

et al. 2017

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“…Urbanization induces artificial changes in land use/land cover and releases anthropogenic heat to lower atmosphere, affecting regional climate by modifying the physical and morphological characteristics of urban areas, the surface energy budget, and the thermodynamic structure of the atmospheric boundary layer (Arnfield, ; Oke, ; Shepherd, ). In contrast to consistent qualitative findings on urbanization‐induced changes in temperature, urban modification of rainfall and its dominant physical mechanisms remain elusive (Guo et al, ; Han, Baik, & Lee, ; Lin et al, ; Miao et al, ; Shem & Shepherd, ; Wang et al, ; Wang, Feng, & Yan, ; Yan et al, ; Zhang et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

2018

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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.

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“…Additionally, lower moisture availability, deeper PBL, and changes in surface hydrology can reduce convective available potential energy (CAPE) and thereby rainfall in urban region (Kaufmann et al, ; Zhang et al, ). Lastly, the sign of urban effect on rainfall may vary with rain rates (W. Li et al, ), synoptic conditions (Yan et al, ), and the size and canopy architecture of a city (Schmid & Niyogi, ). Overall, urbanization can have a significant effect on regional water availability as well as can cause flash flood hazards (L. Yang et al, ), but our understanding of the net association between a city and the occurrence of rainfall around it from propagating storms is still uncertain.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aerosol and Urban Land Use Effect on Rainfall Around Cities in Indo‐Gangetic Basin From Observations and Cloud Resolving Model Simulations

et al. 2018

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Coupling of urban land use land cover (LULC) and aerosol loading on rainfall around cities in the Gangetic Basin (GB) is examined here. Long‐term observations illustrate more rainfall at urban core and climatological downwind regions compared to the upwind regions of Kanpur, a metropolitan area located in central GB. In addition, analysis of a 15 day cloud resolving simulation using the Weather Research and Forecasting model also illustrated similar rainfall pattern around other major cities in the GB. Interestingly, the enhancement of downwind rainfall was greater than that over urban regions, and it was positively associated with both the urban area of the city and ambient aerosol loading during the propagating storm. Further, to gain a process‐level understanding, a typical storm that propagated northwestward across Kanpur was simulated using Weather Research and Forecasting under three different scenarios. Case 1 has realistic LULC representation of Kanpur, while the grids representing the Kanpur urban region were replaced by cropland LULC pattern in Case 2. Comparison illustrated that urban heat island effect caused convergence of winds and moisture in the lower troposphere, which enhances convection over urban region and induced more rainfall over the urban core compared to upwind regions. Case 3 is similar to Case 1 but lower aerosol concentration (by a factor of 100) over the storm region. Analysis shows that aerosol‐induced microphysical changes delay the initiation of warm rain (over the upwind region) but enhance ice phase particle formation in latter stages (over the urban and downwind regions) resulting in increase in downwind rainfall.

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Review of recent studies of the climatic effects of urbanization in China

Cited by 104 publications

References 92 publications

Long‐Term Warming Trends in Korea and Contribution of Urbanization: An Updated Assessment

Long‐Term Warming Trends in Korea and Contribution of Urbanization: An Updated Assessment

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

Aerosol and Urban Land Use Effect on Rainfall Around Cities in Indo‐Gangetic Basin From Observations and Cloud Resolving Model Simulations

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