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Numerical study on regional climate change due to the rapid urbanization of greater Ho Chi Minh City's metropolitan area over the past 20 years
Author(s) -
Doan QuangVan,
Kusaka Hiroyuki
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.4582
Subject(s) - urbanization , urban heat island , metropolitan area , climatology , environmental science , urban climate , downscaling , climate change , physical geography , geography , latent heat , vegetation (pathology) , urban area , meteorology , geology , ecology , precipitation , medicine , oceanography , archaeology , pathology , biology
This study examines climatic impact of urbanization on the variability of the urban heat island ( UHI ) effect over Greater Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area ( GHCM ), since the late 1980s, using the dynamical downscaling with very high‐resolution regional climate model coupled to an urban canopy model ( RCM / UCM ). This is the first application of RCM / UCM to a city in developing countries in Southeast Asia in assessing the impacts of the past land‐use and anthropogenic heat release during the selected three periods (ca. 1989, 1999, and 2009). The main findings are as follows: First, agreement between simulated results (for case of ca. 2009 urban) and observation demonstrates that the RCM / UCM is able to reproduce the urban climate of GHCM . Second, the evolution of spatial distribution of UHI is closely associated with urban expansion. The increase in the surface air temperature was about 0.3 °C in the pre‐existing urbanized area and about 0.6 °C in newly urbanized area in the last 20 years. Main factor of these changes is conversion of agriculture or grassland into urban structure, which results in increase in sensible heating and decrease in latent heating. In addition, in the central GHCM , the urbanization impact was estimated at 0.31 °C, while the temperature increase was observed at 0.64 °C in the last 20 years. This suggests that the urbanization may contribute about half to the increase of surface air temperature in the central GHCM .