Journal
CLIMATE DYNAMICS
Volume 42, Issue 7-8, Pages 2183-2199Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00382-013-1789-6
Keywords
Regional climate model; Urban heat island; Climate change; Temperature
Categories
Funding
- NSW Environment Trust [RM08603]
- NSW Office of Environment and Heritage
- Australian Research Council [FT110100576]
- Merit Allocation Scheme on the NCI National Facility at the ANU
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study examines the impact of future urban expansion on local near-surface temperature for Sydney (Australia) using a future climate scenario (A2). The Weather Research and Forecasting model was used to simulate the present (1990-2009) and future (2040-2059) climates of the region at 2-km spatial resolution. The standard land use of the model was replaced with a more accurate dataset that covers the Sydney area. The future simulation incorporates the projected changes in the urban area of Sydney to account for the expected urban expansion. A comparison between areas with projected land use changes and their surroundings was conducted to evaluate how urbanization and global warming will act together and to ascertain their combined effect on the local climate. The analysis of the temperature changes revealed that future urbanization will strongly affect minimum temperature, whereas little impact was detected for maximum temperature. The minimum temperature changes will be noticeable throughout the year. However, during winter and spring these differences will be particularly large and the increases could be double the increase due to global warming alone at 2050. Results indicated that the changes were mostly due to increased heat capacity of urban structures and reduced evaporation in the city environment.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available