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Contribution of urbanization to the increase of extreme heat events in an urban agglomeration in east China
Author(s) -
Yang Xuchao,
Ruby Leung L.,
Zhao Naizhuo,
Zhao Chun,
Qian Yun,
Hu Kejia,
Liu Xiaoping,
Chen Baode
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2017gl074084
Subject(s) - urbanization , delta , urban heat island , china , urban agglomeration , economies of agglomeration , environmental science , climatology , yangtze river , physical geography , urban climate , geography , economic geography , meteorology , geology , ecology , economic growth , archaeology , economics , engineering , biology , aerospace engineering
The urban agglomeration of Yangtze River Delta (YRD) is emblematic of China's rapid urbanization during the past decades. Based on homogenized daily maximum and minimum temperature data, the contributions of urbanization to trends of summer extreme temperature indices (ETIs) in YRD are evaluated. Dynamically classifying the observational stations into urban and rural, this study presents unexplored changes in temperature extremes during the past four decades in YRD and quantifies the amplification of the positive trends in ETIs by the urban heat island effect. Overall, urbanization contributes to more than one third of the increase of intensity of extreme heat events in the region, which is comparable to the contribution of greenhouse gases. Compared to rural stations, more notable shifts to the right in the probability distribution of temperature and ETIs are found in urban stations. The rapid urbanization in YRD has resulted in large increases in the risk of heat extremes.