Detection of urban warming in recent temperature trends in Japan

The contribution of urban effects on recent temperature trends in Japan was analysed using data at 561 stations for 27 years (March 1979–February 2006). Stations were categorized according to the population density of surrounding few kilometres. There is a warming trend of 0.3–0.4 °C/decade even for stations with low population density (<100 people per square kilometre), indicating that the recent temperature increase is largely contributed by background climatic change. On the other hand, anomalous warming trend is detected for stations with larger population density. Even for only weakly populated sites with population density of 100–300/km2, there is an anomalous trend of 0.03–0.05 °C/decade. This fact suggests that urban warming is detectable not only at large cities but also at slightly urbanized sites in Japan. Copyright © 2008 Royal Meteorological Society

[1]  Hiroshi Komiyama,et al.  Development of a Multi-Layer Urban Canopy Model for the Analysis of Energy Consumption in a Big City: Structure of the Urban Canopy Model and its Basic Performance , 2005 .

[2]  Yasushi Sakakibara,et al.  Urban–rural temperature differences in coastal cities: influence of rural sites , 2005 .

[3]  F. Fujibe.  Time-of-the-Day Dependence of Long-Term Temperature Changes at Urban Meteorological Stations in Japan , 1997 .

[4]  F. Fujibe.  Weekday-weekend Differences of Urban Climates, Part 2: Detection of Temperature Differences for Medi , 1988 .

[5]  Z. H. Chen,et al.  Implications of temporal change in urban heat island intensity observed at Beijing and Wuhan stations , 2007 .

[6]  Liming Zhou,et al.  Observational evidence of sensitivity of surface climate changes to land types and urbanization , 2005 .

[7]  S. Yamashita,et al.  Detailed structure of heat island phenomena from moving observations from electric tram-cars in Metropolitan Tokyo , 1996 .

[8]  Makiko Sato,et al.  A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change , 2001 .

[9]  F. Fujibe,et al.  Temperature rising trends at Japanese cities during the last hundred years and their relationships with population, population increasing rates and daily temperature ranges , 1995 .

[10]  David Parker,et al.  A Demonstration That Large-Scale Warming Is Not Urban , 2006 .

[11]  C. Tucker,et al.  Evidence for a significant urbanization effect on climate in China. , 2004, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[12]  K. Gallo,et al.  Land use/land cover change effects on temperature trends at U.S. Climate Normals stations , 2006 .

[13]  Kevin P. Gallo,et al.  Evaluation of Temperature Differences for Paired Stations of the U.S. Climate Reference Network , 2005 .

[14]  Jong-Jin Baik,et al.  Maximum Urban Heat Island Intensity in Seoul , 2002 .

[15]  J. Monteith,et al.  Boundary Layer Climates. , 1979 .

[16]  H. Diaz,et al.  Urbanization: Its Detection and Effect in the United States Climate Record , 1988 .

[17]  Qingxiang Li,et al.  Urban heat island effect on annual mean temperature during the last 50 years in China , 2004 .

[18]  R. Allen,et al.  Trends in Twentieth-Century Temperature Extremes across the United States , 2002 .

[19]  Thomas C. Peterson,et al.  Global rural temperature trends , 1999 .

[20]  H. Kato.  A Statistical Method for Separating Urban Effect Trends from Observed Temperature Data and its Appli , 1996 .

[21]  W. Parton,et al.  Problems in evaluating regional and local trends in temperature: an example from eastern Colorado, USA , 2002 .

[22]  L. Hua,et al.  The impact of urbanization on air temperature across China , 2008 .

[23]  P. Michaels,et al.  Observed changes in the diurnal temperature and dewpoint cycles across the United States , 1996 .

[24]  T. Kawamura.  Recent changes of atmospheric environment in Tokyo and its surrounding area , 1985 .

[25]  Emi Matsui,et al.  Relation between Heat Island Intensity and City Size Indices/Urban Canopy Characteristics in Settlements of Nagano Basin, Japan , 2005 .

[26]  M. Haylock,et al.  Change in mean temperature as a predictor of extreme temperature change in the Asia–Pacific region , 2005 .

[27]  Thomas C. Peterson,et al.  Assessment of Urban versus Rural in Situ surface temperatures in the contiguous United States: No di , 2003 .

[28]  Observed changes in the diurnal dewpoint cycles across North America , 1998 .

[29]  T. Peterson,et al.  Urban Heat Island Assessment: Metadata Are Important , 2005 .

[30]  D. Seidel,et al.  A global comparison of surface and free‐air temperatures at high elevations , 2005 .

[31]  Ryozo Ooka,et al.  Recent development of assessment tools for urban climate and heat‐island investigation especially based on experiences in Japan , 2007 .

[32]  L. Shenton,et al.  Omnibus test contours for departures from normality based on √b1 and b2 , 1975 .

[33]  Hiroyuki Kusaka,et al.  Thermal Effects of Urban Canyon Structure on the Nocturnal Heat Island: Numerical Experiment Using a Mesoscale Model Coupled with an Urban Canopy Model , 2004 .

[34]  W. Stefanov,et al.  The Role of Rural Variability in Urban Heat Island Determination for Phoenix, Arizona , 2004 .

[35]  H. Landsberg.  Urban Climate , 2011, Urban Ecology for Citizens and Planners.

[36]  W. Kwon,et al.  Adjusting urban bias in the regional mean surface temperature series of South Korea, 1968–99 , 2003 .

[37]  T. Oke.  City size and the urban heat island , 1973 .