The State-of-the-Art of Urban Climate Change Modeling and Observations

Abstract

As an effect of climate change, cities need detailed information on urban climates at decision scale that cannot be easily delivered using current observation networks, nor global and even regional climate models. A review is presented of the recent literature and recommendations are formulated for future work. In most cities, historical observational records are too short, discontinuous, or of too poor quality to support trend analysis and climate change attribution. For climate modeling, on the other hand, specific dynamical and thermal parameterization dedicated to the exchange of water and energy between the atmosphere and the urban surfaces have to be implemented. Therefore, to fully understand how cities are impacted by climate change, it is important to have (1) simulations of the urban climate at fine spatial scales (including coastal hazards for coastal cities) integrating global climate scenarios with urban expansion and population growth scenarios and their associated uncertainty estimates, (2) urban climate observations, especially in Global South cities, and (3) spatial data of high resolution on urban structure and form, human behavior, and energy consumption.

Convection‐permitting modeling with regional climate models: Latest developments and next steps

“…CPRCMs are of major interest for urban studies in several ways. Their fine horizontal resolution allows for an improved description of land use variations related to the presence of cities (Gutowski et al, 2020), as well as increasing the relevance in activating specific urban canopy parameterizations (Trusilova et al, 2013, 2016; Argüeso et al, 2016; Hamdi et al, 2020; Li, Zhou, et al, 2019; Wouters et al, 2016). Coupled with urban models, CPRCMs can simulate the evolution of climatic conditions in the city, diagnosing environmental conditions within canyons (Lee et al, 2016), and thus address the issues of climate change impacts in cities.…”

Sensitivity of Convection-Permitting Regional Climate Simulations to Changes in Land Cover Input Data: Role of Land Surface Characteristics for Temperature and Climate Extremes

“…Minimum temperature is associated with the nocturnal surface energy balance. Higher temperatures during the daytime may result in enhanced storage of heat through thermal and radiative properties and higher roughness of cities, which leads to a warmer temperature at night in urban areas contributing to the urban heat island effect (Hamdi et al, 2020). Less vegetation and soil, and thus less evapotranspiration in urban areas decreases latent heat fluxes.…”

Mapping abundance distributions of allergenic tree species in urbanized landscapes: A nation-wide study for Belgium using forest inventory and citizen science data

“…Mapping tree distributions of allergenic plants in urbanized landscapes is of high importance to evaluate their impact on micro-climate, air-quality and human health (Battisti, Pille, Wachtel, Larcher, & Säumel, 2019;Ottosen, Petch, Hanson, & Skjøth, 2020). By providing shade and reducing radiant temperatures, trees can mitigate the urban heat-island effect (Hamdi et al, 2020;Oke, 1982) and improve the thermal comfort of humans (Lee, Mayer, & Chen, 2016;Teshnehdel, Akbari, Di Giuseppe, & Brown, 2020). In addition, urban trees and peri-urban forests can improve air quality through trapping of particulate matter on the leaf surface and by absorbing gaseous pollutants (Baumgardner, Varela, Escobedo, Chacalo, & Ochoa, 2012;Grote et al, 2016).…”