Abstract
For U.S., Argentine and Australian cities, yearly mean urban to rural temperature differences (ΔTu-r) and rural temperatures (Tr) are negatively correlated in almost every case, suggesting that urban heat island intensity depends, among other parameters on the temperature itself. This negative correlation is related to the fact that interannual variability of temperature is generally lower in urban environments than in rural areas. This seems to hold true at low frequencies leading to opposite trends in the two variables. Hence, urban stations are prone to have lower trends in absolute value than rural ones. Therefore, regional data sets including records from urban locations, in addition to urban growth bias may have a second type of urban bias associated with temperature trends. A bulk estimate of this second urban bias trend for the contiguous United States during 1901–1984 indicates that it could be of the same order as the urban growth bias and of opposite sign. If these results could be extended to global data, it could be expected that the spurious influence of urban growth on global temperature trends during warming periods will be offset by the diminishing of the urban heat island intensity.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ackerman, B.: 1985, ‘Temporal March of the Chicago Heat Island’, J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol. 24, 547–554.
Balling, R. C. and Idso, S. B.: 1989, ‘Historical Temperature Trends in the United Sates and the Effect of Urban Population Growth’, J. Geophys. Res. 94, 3359–3363.
Barros, V. and Camilloni, I.: 1994, ‘Urban Biased Trends in Buenos Aires' Mean Temperature’, Clim. Res. 4, 33–45.
Camilloni, I. and Barros, V.: 1995, ‘Influencia de la Isla Urbana de Calor en la Estimación de las Tendencias Seculares de la Temperatura en Argentina Subtropical’, Geofisica Internacional 34, 161–170.
Chandler, T. J.: 1962, ‘London's Urban Climate’, Geogr. J. 127, 279–302.
Chandler, T. J.: 1965, The Climate of London, Hutchinson & Co., London, p. 292.
Colacino, M. and Rovelli, A.: 1983, ‘The Yearly Averaged Air Temperature in Rome from 1782 to 1975’, Tellus 35A, 389–397.
Coughlan, M., Tapp, R., and Kininmonth, W.: 1989, ‘Trends in Australian Temperature Records’, in Observed Climate Variations and Change: Contributions in Support of Section 7 of the 1990 IPCC Scientific Assessment, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, pp. 1–28.
Godowitch, J. M., Ching, J. K. S., and Clarke, J. F.: 1985, ‘Evolution of the Nocturnal Inversion Layer at an Urban and Nonurban Location’, J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol. 24, 791–804.
Hansen, J. and Lebedeff, S.: 1987, ‘Global Trends of Measured Surface Air Temperature’, J. Geophys. Res. 92, 13345–13372.
Holzworth, G.: 1974, Climatological Aspects of the Composition and Pollution of the Atmosphere, WMO Tech. Note No. 139, p. 43.
Jones, P. D.: 1985, ‘Southern Hemisphere Temperatures’, Climate Monitor 14, 132–140.
Jones, P. D.: 1988, ‘Hemispheric Surface Air Temperature Variations: Recent Trends and an Update to 1987’, J. Clim. 1, 654–660.
Jones, P. D., Raper, S. C., and Wigley, T. M.: 1986a, ‘Southern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variations: 1851–1984’, J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol. 25, 1215–1230.
Jones, P. D., Wigley, T. M., and Wright, P. B.: 1986b, ‘Global Temperature Variations 1861–1984’, Nature 322, 430–434.
Jones, P. D., Kelly, P. M., Goodess, C. M., and Karl, T. R.: 1989, ‘The Effect of Urban Warming on the Northern Hemisphere Temperature Average’, J. Clim. 2, 285–290.
Jones, P. D., Raper, S. C., Bradley, R. S., Diaz, H. F., Kelly, P. M., and Wigley, T. M.: 1986c, ‘Northern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variations: 1851–1984’, J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol. 25, 161–179.
Jones, P. D., Groisman, P. Ya., Coughlan, M., Plummer, N., Wang, W. C., and Karl, T. R.: 1990, ‘Assessment of Urbanization Effects in Time Series of Surface Air Temperature over Land’, Nature 347, 169–172.
Jones, P. D., Raper, S. C. B., Cherry, B. S. G., Goodess, C.M., Wigley, T. M. L., Santer, B., Kelly, P. M., Bradley, R. S., and Diaz, H. F.: 1991, An Updated Global Grid Point Surface Air Temperature Anomaly Data Set: 1851–1990, Environmental Sciences Division, Publication No. 3520, p. 251.
Karl, T. R. and Jones, P. D.: 1989, ‘Urban Bias in Area-Averaged Surface Air Temperature Trends’, Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 70, 265–270.
Karl, T. R., Baldwin, R. G., and Burgin, M. G.: 1988a, ‘Time Series of Regional Averages of Maximum, Minimum and Average Temperature and Diurnal Temperature Range Across the United States: 1901–1984’, in Hist. Climatol. Ser. 4–5, Ashville, National Climatic Data Center.
Karl, T. R., Diaz, H. F., and Kukla, G.: 1988b. ‘Urbanization: Its Detection and Effect in the United States Climate Record’, J. Clim. 1, 1099–1123.
Kukla, G., Gavin, J., and Karl, T.R.: 1986, ‘Urban Warming’, J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol. 25, 1265–1270.
Lee, D. O.: 1975, ‘Rural Atmospheric Stability and the Intensity of London's Heat Island’, Weather 30, 102–109.
Lowry, W. P.: 1977, ‘Empirical Estimation of Urban Effects on Climate: A Problem Analysis’, J. Appl. Meteorol. 16, 124–135.
Mazzeo, N. A. and Gassmann, M. I.: 1990, ‘Mixing Heights and Wind Direction Analysis for Urban and Suburban Areas of Buenos Aires City’, Energy Buildings 15–16, 333–337.
Mitchell, J. M.: 1961, ‘The Temperature of Cities’, Weatherwise 14, 224–229.
Moreno García, M. C.: 1994, ‘Intensity and Form of the Urban Heat Island in Barcelona’, Int. J. Clim. 14, 705–710.
Oke, T. R.: 1973, ‘City Size and the Urban Heat Island’, Atmos. Environ. 7, 769–779.
Oke, T. R.: 1979, Review of Urban Climatology, WMO Tech. Note No. 169, p. 100.
Oke, T. R.: 1982, ‘The Energetic Basis of the Urban Heat Island’, Quart. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc. 108, 1–24.
Quinlan, F. T., Karl, T. R., and Williams, C. N. Jr.: 1987, ‘United States Historical Climatology Network (HCN) Serial Temperature and Precipitation Data, NDP-019’, Carbon Dioxide Inf. Anal. Cent., Oak Ridge Natl. Lab., Oak Ridge, Tenn., p. 33.
Scian, B. V. and Quinteros, S. R.: 1975, ‘Capa de Mezcla en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires’, Meteorológica 6–7, 145–156.
Vinnikov, K. Ya., Groisman, P. Ya., and Lugina, K. M.: 1990, ‘The Empirical Data on Modern Global Climate Changes (Temperature and Precipitation)’, J. Clim. 3, 662–677.
Wigley, T. M. and Jones, P. D.: 1988, ‘Do Large-Area Average Temperature Series Have an Urban Warming Bias?’ (Response to the Manuscript by F. B. Wood), Clim. Change 12, 313–319.
Wood, F. B.: 1988, ‘Comment: On the Need for Validation of the Jones et al. Temperature Trends with Respect to Urban Warming’, Clim. Change 12, 297–312.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Camilloni, I., Barros, V. On the Urban Heat Island Effect Dependence on Temperature Trends. Climatic Change 37, 665–681 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005341523032
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005341523032