Progress in urban climatology over the two decades since the first publication of the International Journal of Climatology is reviewed. It is emphasized that urban climatology during this period has benefited from conceptual advances made in microclimatology and boundary-layer climatology in general. The role of scale, heterogeneity, dynamic source areas for turbulent fluxes and the complexity introduced by the roughness sublayer over the tall, rigid roughness elements of cities is described. The diversity of urban heat islands, depending on the medium sensed and the sensing technique, is explained. The review focuses on two areas within urban climatology. First, it assesses advances in the study of selected urban climatic processes relating to urban atmospheric turbulence (including surface roughness) and exchange processes for energy and water, at scales of consideration ranging from individual facets of the urban environment, through streets and city blocks to neighbourhoods. Second, it explores the literature on the urban temperature field. The state of knowledge about urban heat islands around 1980 is described and work since then is assessed in terms of similarities to and contrasts with that situation. Finally, the main advances are summarized and recommendations for urban climate work in the future are made. Copyright © 2003 Royal Meteorological Society.

/pdf/two-decades-of-urban-climate-research-a-review-of-turbulence-12p43b6trj.pdf

Two decades of urban climate research: a review of turbulence, exchanges of energy and water, and the urban heat island

https://researchweb.iiit.ac.in/~sai.deepak/lectures/14.%20Thermal%20remote%20sensing%20of%20urban%20climates%202003%20Voogt%20and%20Oke.pdf

Thermal remote sensing of urban climates

The conversion of Earth's land surface to urban uses is one of the most irreversible human impacts on the global biosphere. It drives the loss of farmland, affects local climate, fragments habitats, and threatens biodiversity. Here we present a meta-analysis of 326 studies that have used remotely sensed images to map urban land conversion. We report a worldwide observed increase in urban land area of 58,000 km2 from 1970 to 2000. India, China, and Africa have experienced the highest rates of urban land expansion, and the largest change in total urban extent has occurred in North America. Across all regions and for all three decades, urban land expansion rates are higher than or equal to urban population growth rates, suggesting that urban growth is becoming more expansive than compact. Annual growth in GDP per capita drives approximately half of the observed urban land expansion in China but only moderately affects urban expansion in India and Africa, where urban land expansion is driven more by urban population growth. In high income countries, rates of urban land expansion are slower and increasingly related to GDP growth. However, in North America, population growth contributes more to urban expansion than it does in Europe. Much of the observed variation in urban expansion was not captured by either population, GDP, or other variables in the model. This suggests that contemporary urban expansion is related to a variety of factors difficult to observe comprehensively at the global level, including international capital flows, the informal economy, land use policy, and generalized transport costs. Using the results from the global model, we develop forecasts for new urban land cover using SRES Scenarios. Our results show that by 2030, global urban land cover will increase between 430,000 km2 and 12,568,000 km2, with an estimate of 1,527,000 km2 more likely.

/pdf/a-meta-analysis-of-global-urban-land-expansion-269vc1n4gd.pdf

A Meta-Analysis of Global Urban Land Expansion

Urban heat island (UHI) is one major anthropogenic modification to the Earth system that transcends its physical boundary. Using MODIS data from 2003 to 2012, we showed that the UHI effect decayed exponentially toward rural areas for majority of the 32 Chinese cities. We found an obvious urban/rural temperature “cliff”, and estimated that the footprint of UHI effect (FP, including urban area) was 2.3 and 3.9 times of urban size for the day and night, respectively, with large spatiotemporal heterogeneities. We further revealed that ignoring the FP may underestimate the UHI intensity in most cases and even alter the direction of UHI estimates for few cities. Our results provide new insights to the characteristics of UHI effect and emphasize the necessity of considering city- and time-specific FP when assessing the urbanization effects on local climate.

/pdf/the-footprint-of-urban-heat-island-effect-in-china-20czw9nj97.pdf

The footprint of urban heat island effect in China

https://www.researchgate.net/file.PostFileLoader.html?id=54c7f9d5d2fd64b80f8b45ef&assetKey=AS%3A273682847469578%401442262483651

Street design and urban canopy layer climate

The principles of radiation geometry and the Lambertian assumption are employed to construct a numerical model of the multiple reflection effects within an urban canyon of variable geometry and surface materials. The canyon model is used to estimate the reflection coefficients for the direct and diffuse short-wave and incoming longwave radiative fluxes and the longwave emissivity of an urban surface. The procedures described are applied to various land-use zones in Columbus, Ohio, for the solstices and equinoxes. The diurnal variation of shortwave reflection coefficients is illustrated; daily values generally increase from the CBD to the residential suburbs. Longwave radiative properties differ little between zones. Radiation budgets are synthesized for each land-use type, assuming negligible atmospheric pollution, and are compared with those for appropriate rural surfaces. Net longwave radiation varies little between zones but net shortwave and net radiation decrease from the CBD to the residential areas...

An approach to the estimation of the surface radiative properties and radiation budgets of cities

An urban canyon energy budget model and its application to urban storage heat flux modeling

A simulation model for surface cooling in urban street canyons under calm conditions is described, based upon a simplified energy budget for the canyon facets containing only the net longwave and substrate heat flux densities. The former term is evaluated from the canyon radiation budget model of Arnfield (1976), the latter by numerically approximating the Fourier heat conduction equation. Equilibrium temperatures evolve through the nocturnal period for specified canyon and incoming longwave irradiance characteristics. Numerical experiments conducted with the model show that canyon geometry alone exerts a significant effect on cooling rates and, hence, on heat island intensity. Construction materials and internal building climate control tend to enhance spatial variations in nocturnal temperatures. The effects of wall thickness, sky radiance distribution and cloud cover also are investigated. Results show qualitative and quantitative correspondences with previous field and scale-model studies. Sources of ...

Canyon geometry, the urban fabric and nocturnal cooling: a simulation approach

An urban canyon energy budget simulation model is described. The model is simple and computationally inexpensive enough to permit characterization of the spatial and temporal variability of canyon energy exchanges by running multiple cases. It is two-dimensional and dry and avoids the necessity for computational fluid dynamical calculations by using parameterizations for the down-canyon wind profile and cross-canyon vortex flow, and by employing an exchange coefficient formulation for sensible heat loss from the walls. These are combined with radiation calculations using the procedure of Arnfield (1976, 1982) and substrate heat fluxes computed using the Fourier heat conduction equation and wall and floor thermal property information. The model is validated against the measured canyon energy budget data of Nunez and Oke (1977) and reproduces these data quite well, with Willmott indices of agreement in the range 0.91 to 1.00 and root-mean-square errors of 14 to 46 W m-2 for individual facets and for the tot...

A. John Arnfield

Papers

Two decades of urban climate research: a review of turbulence, exchanges of energy and water, and the urban heat island

An approach to the estimation of the surface radiative properties and radiation budgets of cities

An urban canyon energy budget model and its application to urban storage heat flux modeling

Canyon geometry, the urban fabric and nocturnal cooling: a simulation approach

A simple model of urban canyon energy budget and its validation