Evolutionary Consequences of the Urban Heat Island

2020 ◽  
pp. 91-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Diamond ◽  
Ryan A. Martin

As humans continue to modify the climatic conditions organisms encounter, downstream effects on the phenotypes of organisms are likely to arise. In particular, the worldwide proliferation of human settlements rapidly generates pockets of localized warming across the landscape. These urban heat island effects are frequently intense, especially for moderate to larger sized cities, where urban centres can be several degrees Celsius warmer compared with nearby non-urban areas. Although organisms likely ameliorate the effects of warming through phenotypic plasticity, the evolution of thermally sensitive traits may be an important yet underappreciated means of survival. Recent work suggests the potential for contemporary evolutionary change in association with urban heat islands across a diverse suite of traits from morphology to physiological tolerance, growth rate, and metabolism. This chapter reviews and synthesizes this work. It first develops a comprehensive set of predictions for adaptive evolutionary changes in morphology, physiology, and life-history traits driven by urban heat islands. It then evaluates these predictions with regard to the burgeoning literature on urban evolution of thermally sensitive traits.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunice Lo ◽  
Dann Mitchell ◽  
Sylvia Bohnenstengel ◽  
Mat Collins ◽  
Ed Hawkins ◽  
...  

<p>Urban environments are known to be warmer than their sub-urban or rural surroundings, particularly at night. In summer, urban heat islands exacerbate the occurrence of extreme heat events, posing health risks to urban residents. In the UK where 90% of the population is projected to live in urban areas by 2050, projecting changes in urban heat islands in a warming climate is essential to adaptation and urban planning.</p><p>With the use of the new UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) in which urban land use is constant, I will show that both summer urban and sub-urban temperatures are projected to increase in the 10 most populous built-up areas in England between 1980 and 2080. However, differential warming rates in urban and sub-urban areas, and during day and at night suggest a trend towards a reduced daytime urban heat island effect but an enhanced night-time urban heat island effect. These changes in urban heat islands have implications on thermal comfort and local atmospheric circulations that impact the dispersion of air pollutants. I will further demonstrate that the opposite trends in daytime and night-time urban heat island effects are projected to emerge from current variability in more than half of the studied cities below a global mean warming of 3°C above pre-industrial levels.</p>


2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (9) ◽  
pp. 2051-2064 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Li ◽  
Elie Bou-Zeid

AbstractCities are well known to be hotter than the rural areas that surround them; this phenomenon is called the urban heat island. Heat waves are excessively hot periods during which the air temperatures of both urban and rural areas increase significantly. However, whether urban and rural temperatures respond in the same way to heat waves remains a critical unanswered question. In this study, a combination of observational and modeling analyses indicates synergies between urban heat islands and heat waves. That is, not only do heat waves increase the ambient temperatures, but they also intensify the difference between urban and rural temperatures. As a result, the added heat stress in cities will be even higher than the sum of the background urban heat island effect and the heat wave effect. Results presented here also attribute this added impact of heat waves on urban areas to the lack of surface moisture in urban areas and the low wind speed associated with heat waves. Given that heat waves are projected to become more frequent and that urban populations are substantially increasing, these findings underline the serious heat-related health risks facing urban residents in the twenty-first century. Adaptation and mitigation strategies will require joint efforts to reinvent the city, allowing for more green spaces and lesser disruption of the natural water cycle.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 3177
Author(s):  
Talha Hassan ◽  
Jiahua Zhang ◽  
Foyez Ahmed Prodhan ◽  
Til Prasad Pangali Sharma ◽  
Barjeece Bashir

Urbanization is an increasing phenomenon around the world, causing many adverse effects in urban areas. Urban heat island is are of the most well-known phenomena. In the present study, surface urban heat islands (SUHI) were studied for seven megacities of the South Asian countries from 2000–2019. The urban thermal environment and relationship between land surface temperature (LST), land use landcover (LULC) and vegetation were examined. The connection was explored with remote-sensing indices such as urban thermal field variance (UTFVI), surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) and normal difference vegetation index (NDVI). LULC maps are classified using a CART machine learning classifier, and an accuracy table was generated. The LULC change matrix shows that the vegetated areas of all the cities decreased with an increase in the urban areas during the 20 years. The average LST in the rural areas is increasing compared to the urban core, and the difference is in the range of 1–2 (°C). The SUHII linear trend is increasing in Delhi, Karachi, Kathmandu, and Thimphu, while decreasing in Colombo, Dhaka, and Kabul from 2000–2019. UTFVI has shown the poor ecological conditions in all urban buffers due to high LST and urban infrastructures. In addition, a strong negative correlation between LST and NDVI can be seen in a range of −0.1 to −0.6.


Author(s):  
Tao Chen ◽  
Anchang Sun ◽  
Ruiqing Niu

Man-made materials now cover a dominant proportion of urban areas, and such conditions not only change the absorption of solar radiation, but also the allocation of the solar radiation and cause the surface urban heat island effect, which is considered a serious problem associated with the deterioration of urban environments. Although numerous studies have been performed on surface urban heat islands, only a few have focused on the effect of land cover changes on surface urban heat islands over a long time period. Using six Landsat image scenes of the Metropolitan Development Area of Wuhan, our experiment (1) applied a mapping method for normalized land surface temperatures with three land cover fractions, which were impervious surfaces, non-chlorophyllous vegetation and soil and vegetation fractions, and (2) performed a fitting analysis of fierce change areas in the surface urban heat island intensity based on a time trajectory. Thematic thermal maps were drawn to analyze the distribution of and variations in the surface urban heat island in the study area. A Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis was used to extract the land cover fraction information. Then, six ternary triangle contour graphics were drawn based on the land surface temperature and land cover fraction information. A time trajectory was created to summarize the changing characteristics of the surface urban heat island intensity. A fitting analysis was conducted for areas showing fierce changes in the urban heat intensity. Our results revealed that impervious surfaces had the largest impacts on surface urban heat island intensity, followed by the non-chlorophyllous vegetation and soil fraction. Moreover, the results indicated that the vegetation fraction can alleviate the occurrence of surface urban heat islands. These results reveal the impact of the land cover fractions on surface urban heat islands. Urban expansion generates impervious artificial objects that replace pervious natural objects, which causes an increase in land surface temperature and results in a surface urban heat island.


Geografie ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 124 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ján Feranec ◽  
Monika Kopecká ◽  
Daniel Szatmári ◽  
Juraj Holec ◽  
Pavel Šťastný ◽  
...  

The urban heat island phenomenon occurs in urban areas. It is characterized by increased temperature of both the air and ground surface, compared to the surrounding rural landscape, and is a typical feature of the urban climate. As this phenomenon may affect quality of life in the cities, a variety of scientific studies have been carried out. The article provides a review and evaluation of selected published studies devoted to the issue of the urban heat island, from the point of view of the application of land cover and land use data in the 3-dimensional microscale urban model. Part of the review brings into focus the MUKLIMO model, which computes the atmospheric conditions in urban landscapes and predicts thermal and other climatic characteristics. Evaluated studies confirmed the correlation between the land cover/land use classes and occurrence of the urban heat islands, i.e. a higher percentage of impermeable surfaces within the urban heat island causes more intensive thermal manifestation. The urban heat island effect diminishes when there are less impermeable surfaces and a greater representation of urban greenery in land cover/land use classes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 3345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Montaner-Fernández ◽  
Luis Morales-Salinas ◽  
José Sobrino Rodriguez ◽  
Luz Cárdenas-Jirón ◽  
Alfredo Huete ◽  
...  

Urban heat islands (UHIs) can present significant risks to human health. Santiago, Chile has around 7 million residents, concentrated in an average density of 480 people/km2. During the last few summer seasons, the highest extreme maximum temperatures in over 100 years have been recorded. Given the projections in temperature increase for this metropolitan region over the next 50 years, the Santiago UHI could have an important impact on the health and stress of the general population. We studied the presence and spatial variability of UHIs in Santiago during the summer seasons from 2005 to 2017 using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite imagery and data from nine meteorological stations. Simple regression models, geographic weighted regression (GWR) models and geostatistical interpolations were used to find nocturnal thermal differences in UHIs of up to 9 °C, as well as increases in the magnitude and extension of the daytime heat island from summer 2014 to 2017. Understanding the behavior of the UHI of Santiago, Chile, is important for urban planners and local decision makers. Additionally, understanding the spatial pattern of the UHI could improve knowledge about how urban areas experience and could mitigate climate change.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bing Li ◽  
Zhifeng Liu ◽  
Ying Nan ◽  
Shengnan Li ◽  
Yanmin Yang

Quantification of the spatial pattern of urban heat island intensities across the transnational urban agglomeration of the Tumen River is important for the promotion of sustainable regional development. This study employed Landsat images and MODIS LST data obtained in 2016 to determine the intensity of urban heat islands in this region, enabling direct comparison of data from the sub-regions of China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and Russia. The average urban heat island intensity for the region was found to be 1.0 °C, with the highest intensity of 3.0 °C occurring during the summer time. The intensity of urban heat islands on the Chinese side was higher than on the other two sides, with city size, socio-economic development levels and vegetation coverage significantly affect their intensity. Urban heat island effects in Chinese cities in the region contribute increases in maximum summer temperatures and the number of high-temperature days that pose a threat to the health of their residents. The factors that influence urban heat island intensities in these cities and the impacts of urban heat island effects on the quality of life and health of residents are discussed. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the impact of urban heat island effects on cities in the region by increasing the area of green spaces they contain, as well as controlling their size and population.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2042 (1) ◽  
pp. 012065
Author(s):  
Magalie Técher ◽  
Hassan Ait Haddou ◽  
Rahim Aguejdad

Abstract With the increase of Urban Heat Islands (UHI) and the effects of global warming, cities will face challenges in anticipating these phenomena. However, the complexity of urban development within the framework of urban planning policies, makes difficult for urban decision-makers to anticipate the Urban Heat Islands within their territory. In this paper, we propose a methodology to assess the impact of urban planning policies on Urban Heat Island. Thanks to a coupling of 2D urban growth model, 3D constructability model and urban microclimate simulation, this tool will make it possible to visualize the impact of urban planning decisions on urban form and on Urban Heat Island.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 345
Author(s):  
Amanda Mayara Paulino Da Silva

Abstrat Urban growth has generated several socio-environmental problems and has altered the quality of life of people living in these environments. Due to the disorderly growth of cities and the various forms of urban land use and occupation, changes in the thermal field of these areas have occurred and caused the formation of urban heat islands and thermal discomfort in urban environments. Thus, the need to understand the formation of heat islands in these areas and the study of their causes and consequences grows. Given this context, the present work intends to study the urban climate of the city of Bayeux / PB, specifically the urban thermal field, and the formation of heat islands. For the accomplishment of the research, initially a bibliographical survey of the subject in question was made. Subsequently experimental points of meteorological data collection (temperature and relative air humidity) were defined in the metropolitan area of the city of João Pessoa, specifically in the municipality of Bayeux / PB. These points were defined based on the different types of land use and cover in the study area. The following experimental points were defined: a point in the center of the city of Bayeux / PB, another point on the banks of the BR230 direction Bayeux, and a reference point in a remnant of Atlantic forest. To obtain the urban heat island the reference point was used as a parameter of the climatic conditions of a natural environment. The data of temperature and relative humidity were collected through thermometers (HOBO U-10), which were placed on steel tripods (1.5 meters high) and monitored at uninterrupted intervals of 1 and 1 hour during the dry period and rainy region. The analysis of the data points to the formation of urban heat islands in the two periods evaluated in the city of Bayeux / PB, being the center of the city, the most critical area with the most intense heat islands. The vegetative cover played a predominant role in the climatic mitigation of the experimental samples as well as the presence of precipitation. The areas with impermeable soil cover presented the largest heat islands and contributed to the thermal discomfort of the study area. Keywords: Urban Climate, Thermodynamic Field, Urban Heat Island.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
G.M.T.S. Fernando

Global Warming is a major environmental problem that all kind of organisms has been affected at present. Urban Heat Island (UHI) is one of primary impacts of Global Warming. UHI is a phenomenon that the temperature of urban area is higher than surrounding rural areas or suburban areas. This increasing trend of temperature in urban areas affects many environmental entities such as air quality, water resources, habitats behaviors and climate changes. The most remarkable incident that relate with UHI is the difference of thermal properties of the surfaces. Many countries experience the consequences of Urban Heat Islands in many aspects such as economic, health, social and environmental affects. Thus to mitigate such impacts of UHI, it is very important to identify the main reasons behind this. In this paper UHIs in Colombo, Gampaha Districts and the relationship between UHI and vegetation cover were analyzed based on Landsat 8, 30m resolution data. Land Surface Temperature was derived from Landsat thermal Infrared band through several equations of United State Geological Survay (USGS) guidelines using Arc GIS 10. Conversion of Digital Number (DN) values to Top of Atmosphere (TOA) Radiance, Conversion of TOA Radiance to Satellite Brightness temperature and final calculation of Land Surface Temperature considering land surface emissivity are the steps that had been done for the analysis. Vegetation cover was derived by using vegetation index with the Red and Near Infra Red bands. The result shows that the land high surface temperature directly relates with the urbanized regions where vegetation cover is very less. High temperature difference could be identified that cause to arise the urban heat island effects in Colombo & Gampaha districts. There is a strong linearly negative correlation with correlation coefficient value of -0.742 between land surface temperature and vegetation cover. 78.8 km2 (including water) of total area had been identified as NDVI value less than 0.1. And extent of high temperature area was 74.12 km2 where temperature more than 27oC at 10.22am. The area in temperature range of 25-27 was 464.95km2 and area in NDVI value range 0.1-0.2 was 333.04 km2. 1471.1 km2 was identified as NDVI value between 0.3-0.4 and the area at low temperature was 1529 km2where temperature less than 25oC. According to this results, high temperature at non-vegetated areas and low temperature at vegetated areas could be noted very clearly. This is probably due to the ecological function of vegetation that lay down the surface temperature from high evapotranspiration. Vegetated areas are mostly sensed with surface temperature.Thus research output can be useful for policy-makers and planners of development projects such as Western province Megapolis project as well as for general public to understand the urban heat island effects and importance of vegetation cover to mitigate such impacts.


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