Abstract
Context
Cities have elevated temperatures compared to rural areas, a phenomenon known as the “urban heat island”. Higher temperatures increase the risk of heat-related mortality, which will be exacerbated by climate change.
Objectives
To examine the impact of climate change and urban growth on future urban temperatures and the potential for increased heat stress on urban residents.
Methods
We conducted a systematic review of scientific articles from Jan 2000 to May 2016.
Results
The majority (n = 49, = 86%) of studies examined climate change and the urban heat island in isolation, with few (8) considering their combined effect. Urban growth was found to have a large impact on local temperatures, in some cases by up to 5 °C in North-east USA. In some locations climate change increased the heat island, such as Chicago and Beijing, and in others decreased it, such as Paris and Brussels. When the relative impact of both factors was considered, the temperature increase associated with the urban heat island was always higher. Few studies (9) considered heat stress and its consequences for urban populations. Important contributors to urban temperatures, such as variation in urban density and anthropogenic heat release, were often excluded from studies.
Conclusions
We identify a need for an increased research focus on (1) urban growth impact on the urban heat island in climate change studies; (2) heat stress; and, (3) variation in urban density and its impacts on anthropogenic heat. Focussing on only one factor, climate change or urban growth, risks underestimating future urban temperatures and hampering adaptation.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ackerman B (1985) Temporal march of the Chicago heat Island. J Clim Appl Meteorol 24(6):547–554.
Adachi SA, Kimura F, Kusaka H, Duda MG, Yamagata Y, Seya H, Nakamichi K, Aoyagi T (2014) Moderation of summertime heat island phenomena via modification of the Urban form in the Tokyo metropolitan area. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 53(8):1886–1900.
Adachi SA, Kimura F, Kusaka H, Inoue T, Ueda H (2012) Comparison of the impact of global climate changes and urbanization on summertime future climate in the Tokyo metropolitan area. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 51(8):1441–1454
Aguejdad R, Hidalgo J, Doukari O, Masson V, Houet T (2012) Assessing the influence of long term urban growth on urban climate. Paper presented at the 2012 International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software, Germany
Ahmed B, Kamruzzaman M, Zhu X, Rahman MS, Choi K (2013) Simulating land cover changes and their impacts on land surface temperature in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Remote Sens 5(11):5969–5998
Allen L, Lindberg F, Grimmond CSB (2011) Global to city scale urban anthropogenic heat flux: model and variability. Int J Climatol 31(13):1990–2005
Althor G, Watson JEM, Fuller RA (2016) Global mismatch between greenhouse gas emissions and the burden of climate change. Sci Rep 6:20281
Amengual A, Homar V, Romero R, Brooks HE, Ramis C, Gordaliza M, Alonso S (2014) Projections of heat waves with high impact on human health in Europe. Glob Planet Change 119:71–84
Argueso D, Evans JP, Fita L, Bormann KJ (2014) Temperature response to future urbanization and climate change. Clim Dyn 42(7–8):2183–2199
Argüeso D, Evans J, Fita L, Bormann K (2014) Temperature response to future urbanization and climate change. Clim Dyn 42(7–8):2183–2199
Argüeso D, Evans JP, Pitman AJ, Di Luca A (2015) Effects of city expansion on heat stress under climate change conditions. PLoS One 10(2):e0117066
Arnfield AJ (2003) Two decades of urban climate research: a review of turbulence, exchanges of energy and water, and the urban heat island. Int J Climatol 23(1):1–26
Bohnenstengel SI, Hamilton I, Davies M, Belcher SE (2014) Impact of anthropogenic heat emissions on London’s temperatures. Q J R Meteorol Soc 140(679):687–698
Bonan G (2008) Ecological climatology: concepts and applications, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, New York
Bowler DE, Buyung-Ali L, Knight TM, Pullin AS (2010) Urban greening to cool towns and cities: a systematic review of the empirical evidence. Landsc Urban Plann 97(3):147–155
Broitman D, Koomen E (2015) Residential density change: densification and urban expansion. Comput Environ Urban Syst 54:32–46
Chan EHW, Yung EHK (2004) Is the development control legal framework conducive to a sustainable dense urban development in Hong Kong? Habitat Int 28(3):409–426
Chang C-R, Li M-H, Chang S-D (2007) A preliminary study on the local cool-island intensity of Taipei city parks. Landsc Urban Plann 80(4):386–395
Chapman S, Watson JEM, McAlpine CA (2016) Large seasonal and diurnal anthropogenic heat flux across four Australian cities. J South Hemisph Earth Syst Sci 66(3):342–360
Chen F, Yang X, Zhu W (2014) WRF simulations of urban heat island under hot-weather synoptic conditions: the case study of Hangzhou City, China. Atmos Res 138:364–377
Chen H, Zhang Y (2013) Sensitivity experiments of impacts of large-scale urbanization in East China on East Asian winter monsoon. Chin Sci Bull 58(7):809–815
Christen A, Vogt R (2004) Energy and radiation balance of a central European city. Int J Climatol 24(11):1395–1421
Chun B, Guldmann JM (2014) Spatial statistical analysis and simulation of the urban heat island in high-density central cities. Landsc Urban Plann 125:76–88
Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (2013) Guidelines for Systematic Review and Evidence Synthesis. Environmental Evidence. www.environmentalevidence.org/Documents/Guidelines/Guidelines4.2.pdf. Accessed 09/04/2015
Conry P, Sharma A, Potosnak MJ, Leo LS, Bensman E, Hellmann JJ, Fernando HJS (2015) Chicago’s heat island and climate change: Bridging the scales via dynamical downscaling. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 54(7):1430–1448
Coutts AM, Beringer J, Tapper NJ (2008) Investigating the climatic impact of urban planning strategies through the use of regional climate modelling: a case study for Melbourne, Australia. Int J Climatol 28(14):1943–1957
Coutts AM, White EC, Tapper NJ, Beringer J, Livesley SJ (2016) Temperature and human thermal comfort effects of street trees across three contrasting street canyon environments. Theor Appl Climatol 124(1):55–68
Emmanuel R, Loconsole A (2015) Green infrastructure as an adaptation approach to tackling urban overheating in the Glasgow Clyde Valley Region, UK. Landsc Urban Plann 138:71–86
Fallmann J, Emeis S, Suppan P (2013) Mitigation of urban heat stress—a modelling case study for the area of Stuttgart. Erde 144(3–4):202–216
Fang G (2015) Prediction and analysis of urban heat island effect in dangshan by remote sensing. Int J Smart Sens Intell Syst 8(4):2195–2211
Fischer EM, Oleson KW, Lawrence DM (2012) Contrasting urban and rural heat stress responses to climate change. Geophys Res Lett 39(3):L03705
Gedzelman SD, Austin S, Cermak R, Stefano N, Partridge S, Quesenberry S, Robinson DA (2003) Mesoscale aspects of the urban heat island around New York City. Theor Appl Climatol 75(1–2):29–42
Georgescu M, Mahalov A, Moustaoui M (2012) Seasonal hydroclimatic impacts of Sun Corridor expansion. Environ Res Lett. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/3/034026
Georgescu M, Morefield PE, Bierwagen BG, Weaver CP (2014) Urban adaptation can roll back warming of emerging megapolitan regions. Proc Natl Acad Sci 111(8):2909–2914
González-Aparicio I, Baklanov A, Hidalgo J, Korsholm U, Nuterman R, Mahura A (2014) Impact of city expansion and increased heat fluxes scenarios on the urban boundary layer of Bilbao using Enviro-HIRLAM. Urban Clim 10, Part 5 (0):831–845
Grimmond CSB, Oke TR (1991) An evapotranspiration-interception model for urban areas. Water Resour Res 27(7):1739–1755
Hajat S, Kosatky T (2010) Heat-related mortality: a review and exploration of heterogeneity. J Epidemiol Commun Health 64(9):753–760
Hajat S, O’Connor M, Kosatsky T (2010) Health effects of hot weather: from awareness of risk factors to effective health protection. The Lancet 375(9717):856–863
Hamdi R, Giot O, De Troch R, Deckmyn A, Termonia P (2015) Future climate of Brussels and Paris for the 2050 s under the A1B scenario. Urban Clim 12:160–182
Hamdi R, Van de Vyver H, De Troch R, Termonia P (2014) Assessment of three dynamical urban climate downscaling methods: Brussels’s future urban heat island under an A1B emission scenario. Int J Climatol 34(4):978–999
Hawkins E, Sutton R (2011) The potential to narrow uncertainty in projections of regional precipitation change. Clim Dyn 37(1):407–418
Hidalgo J, Masson V, Baklanov A, Pigeon G, Gimeno L (2008) Advances in urban climate modeling. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1146:354–374
Hoffmann P, Krueger O, Schluenzen KH (2012) A statistical model for the urban heat island and its application to a climate change scenario. Int J Climatol 32(8):1238–1248
Hoffmann P, Schluenzen KH (2013) Weather pattern classification to represent the urban heat island in present and future climate. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 52(12):2699–2714
Hoffmann P, Schlünzen KH (2013) Weather pattern classification to represent the urban heat island in present and future climate. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 52(12):2699–2714
Ichinose T, Shimodozono K, Hanaki K (1999) Impact of anthropogenic heat on urban climate in Tokyo. Atmos Environ 33(24–25):3897–3909
IPCC (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107415324
IPCC (2014) Climate change 2014: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Part A: global and sectoral aspects. Contribution of working group II to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change [Field, C.B., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA
Koomen E, Diogo V (2015) Assessing potential future urban heat island patterns following climate scenarios, socio-economic developments and spatial planning strategies. Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change. doi:10.1007/s11027-015-9646-z
Kusaka H, Hara M, Takane Y (2012) Urban climate projection by the WRF model at 3-km horizontal grid increment: dynamical downscaling and predicting heat stress in the 2070’s August for Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya metropolises. J Meteorol Soc of Japan Ser II 90B:47–63
Lauwaet D, De Ridder K, Saeed S, Brisson E, Chatterjee F, van Lipzig NPM, Maiheu B, Hooyberghs H (2016) Assessing the current and future urban heat island of Brussels. Urban Clim 15:1–15
Lee SE, Levermore G (2012) Simulating urban heat island effects with climate change on a Manchester house. Build Serv Eng Res Technol 34(2):203–221
Lemonsu A, Kounkou-Arnaud R, Desplat J, Salagnac J-L, Masson V (2013) Evolution of the Parisian urban climate under a global changing climate. Clim Change 116(3–4):679–692
Lemonsu A, Viguié V, Daniel M, Masson V (2015) Vulnerability to heat waves: Impact of urban expansion scenarios on urban heat island and heat stress in Paris (France). Urban Clima 14:586–605
Li X-X, Koh T-Y, Panda J, Norford LK (2016) Impact of urbanization patterns on the local climate of a tropical city Singapore: an ensemble study. J Geophys Res doi:10.1002/2015JD024452
Lin Y, Liu A, Ma E, Li X (2013) Impacts of future urban expansion on regional climate in the Northeast megalopolis, USA. J Glob Environ Eng 7015:1–10
Loughner CP, Allen DJ, Zhang DL, Pickering KE, Dickerson RR, Landry L (2012) Roles of urban tree canopy and buildings in urban heat island effects: Parameterization and preliminary results. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 51(10):1775–1793
Luber G, McGeehin M (2008) Climate change and extreme heat events. Am J Prev Med 35(5):429–435
Masson V, Lion Y, Peter A, Pigeon G, Buyck J, Brun E (2013) “Grand Paris”: regional landscape change to adapt city to climate warming. Clim Change 117(4):769–782
Masson V, Marchadier C, Adolphe L, Aguejdad R, Avner P, Bonhomme M, Bretagne G, Briottet X, Bueno B, de Munck C, Doukari O, Hallegatte S, Hidalgo J, Houet T, Le Bras J, Lemonsu A, Long N, Moine MP, Morel T, Nolorgues L, Pigeon G, Salagnac JL, Viguié V, Zibouche K (2014) Adapting cities to climate change: A systemic modelling approach. Urban Climate 10, Part 2 (0):407–429
McCarthy MP, Best MJ, Betts RA (2010) Climate change in cities due to global warming and urban effects. Geophys Res Lett. doi:10.1029/2010GL042845
McCarthy M, Best M, Betts R, Hendry M (2009) Climate change, cities, and the urban heat island. In: AMS 21st Conference on Climate Variability and Change, Phoenix January 2009
McCarthy MP, Harpham C, Goodess CM, Jones PD (2012) Simulating climate change in UK cities using a regional climate model, HadRM3. Int J Climatol 32(12):1875–1888
Medina-Ramón M, Schwartz J (2007) Temperature, temperature extremes, and mortality: a study of acclimatisation and effect modification in 50 US cities. Occup Environ Med 64(12):827–833
Nichol J, Hang TP, Ng E (2014) Temperature projection in a tropical city using remote sensing and dynamic modeling. Clim Dyn 42(11–12):2921–2929
Nunez-Mir GC, Iannone BV, Pijanowski BC, Kong N, Fei S (2016) Automated content analysis: addressing the big literature challenge in ecology and evolution. Methods Ecol Evol 7(11):1262–1272
Oke TR (1979) Review of urban climatology 1973–1976. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva
Oke TR (1982) The energetic basis of the urban heat island. Q J R Meteorol Soc 108(455):1–24
Oke TR, Johnson GT, Steyn DG, Watson ID (1991) Simulation of surface urban heat islands under ‘ideal’ conditions at night part 2: Diagnosis of causation. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 56(4):339–358
Oleson K (2012) Contrasts between urban and rural climate in CCSM4 CMIP5 climate change scenarios. J Clim 25(5):1390–1412
Oleson KW, Bonan GB, Feddema J, Jackson T (2011) An examination of urban heat island characteristics in a global climate model. Int J Climatol 31(12):1848–1865
Oleson KW, Monaghan A, Wilhelmi O, Barlage M, Brunsell N, Feddema J, Hu L, Steinhoff DF (2015) Interactions between urbanization, heat stress, and climate change. Clim Change 129(3–4):525–541
Pielke RA, Pitman A, Niyogi D, Mahmood R, McAlpine C, Hossain F, Goldewijk KK, Nair U, Betts R, Fall S, Reichstein M, Kabat P, de Noblet N (2011) Land use/land cover changes and climate: modeling analysis and observational evidence. Wiley Interdiscip Rev 2(6):828–850
Pullin AS, Stewart GB (2006) Guidelines for systematic review in conservation and environmental management. Conserv Biol 20(6):1647–1656
Qin Y (2015) Urban canyon albedo and its implication on the use of reflective cool pavements. Energy Build 96:86–94
Rawlins MA, Bradley RS, Diaz HF (2012) Assessment of regional climate model simulation estimates over the northeast United States. J Geophys Res 117 (D23):n/a-n/a. doi:10.1029/2012JD018137
Richter M (2015) Urban climate change-related effects on extreme heat events in Rostock, Germany. Urban Ecosyst. doi:10.1007/s11252-015-0508-y
Roberts PD, Stewart GB, Pullin AS (2006) Are review articles a reliable source of evidence to support conservation and environmental management? A comparison with medicine. Biol Conserv 132(4):409–423
Rogelj J, den Elzen M, Höhne N, Fransen T, Fekete H, Winkler H, Schaeffer R, Sha F, Riahi K, Meinshausen M (2016) Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 & #xB0;C. Nature 534(7609):631–639. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v534/n7609/abs/nature18307.html#supplementary-information
Rosenzweig C, Solecki WD, Parshall L, Chopping M, Pope G, Goldberg R (2005) Characterizing the urban heat island in current and future climates in New Jersey. Environ Hazards 6(1):51–62
Roth M (2007) Review of urban climate research in (sub)tropical regions. Int J Climatol 27(14):1859–1873
Sachsen T, Ketzler G, Knoerchen A, Schneider C (2013) Past and future evolution of nighttime urban cooling by suburban cold air drainage in Aachen. Erde 144(3–4):274–289
Sailor DJ (2011) A review of methods for estimating anthropogenic heat and moisture emissions in the urban environment. Int J Climatol 31(2):189–199
Sailor DJ (2014) Risks of summertime extreme thermal conditions in buildings as a result of climate change and exacerbation of urban heat islands. Build Environ 78:81–88
Sailor DJ, Lu L (2004) A top–down methodology for developing diurnal and seasonal anthropogenic heating profiles for urban areas. Atmos Environ 38(17):2737–2748
Salagnac J-L (2007) Lessons from the 2003 heat wave: a French perspective. Build Res Inf 35(4):450–457
Sanderson BM, O’Neill BC, Tebaldi C (2016) What would it take to achieve the Paris temperature targets? Geophys Res Lett 43(13):7133–7142
Seto KC, Fragkias M, Güneralp B, Reilly MK (2011) A meta-analysis of global urban land expansion. PLoS ONE 6(8):e23777
Seto KC, Güneralp B, Hutyra LR (2012) Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon pools. Proc Natl Acad Sci 109(40):16083–16088
Shalom HIB, Samuels R, Potchter O, Alpert P (2008) The combined effect of global warming and the urban heat island and its impact on human heat stress increase in Israeli cities–current trends and future predictions
Sharifi E, Lehmann S (2014) Comparative analysis of surface urban heat island effect in Central Sydney. J Sustain Dev 7(3):23–34
Shin DW, Baigorria GA (2012) Potential influence of land development patterns on regional climate: a summer case study in the Central Florida. Nat Hazards 62(3):877–885
Taha H (1997) Urban climates and heat islands: albedo, evapotranspiration, and anthropogenic heat. Energy Build 25(2):99–103
Takemi T, Arimitsu T, Tamai M (2006) Mesoscale circulation induced by the coupled effects of urban heat island and land-sea contrast and its response to land use change. In: The Fourth International Symposium on Computational Wind Engineering (CWE 2006), pp 219–222
Trusilova K, Frueh B, Brienen S, Walter A, Masson V, Pigeon G, Becker P (2013) Implementation of an urban parameterization scheme into the regional climate model COSMO-CLM. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 52(10):2296–2311
Trusilova K, MJ, Churkina G (2009) On climate impacts of a potential expansion of urban land in Europe. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 48(9):1971–1980
Unger J (2009) Connection between urban heat island and sky view factor approximated by a software tool on a 3D urban database. Int J Environ Pollut 36(1–3):59–80
United Nations (2014) World urbanization prospects: the 2014 revision—highlights. United Nations, New York
Velazquez-Lozada A, Gonzalez JE, Winter A (2006) Urban heat island effect analysis for San Juan, Puerto Rico. Atmos Environ 40(9):1731–1741
Vetter D, Rücker G, Storch I (2013) Meta-analysis: a need for well-defined usage in ecology and conservation biology. Ecosphere 4(6):1–24
Wang J, Huang B, Fu D, Atkinson PM, Zhang X (2016) Response of urban heat island to future urban expansion over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei metropolitan area. Appl Geogr 70:26–36
Wilby RL (2003) Past and projected trends in London’s urban heat island. Weather 58(7):251–260
Wilby RL (2008) Constructing climate change scenarios of urban heat island intensity and air quality. Environ Plann 35(5):902–919
Wu H, Ye LP, Shi WZ, Clarke KC (2014) Assessing the effects of land use spatial structure on urban heat islands using HJ-1B remote sensing imagery in Wuhan, China. Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinf 32(1):67–78
Xie ZQ, Du Y, Zeng Y, Yan ML, Zhu CY (2010) Accelerated human activities affecting the spatial pattern of temperature in the Yangtze River Delta. Quatern Int 226(1–2):112–121
Yang L, Niyogi D, Tewari M, Aliaga D, Chen F, Tian F, Ni G (2016) Contrasting impacts of urban forms on the future thermal environment: example of Beijing metropolitan area. Environ Res Lett. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034018
Yow DM (2007) Urban heat islands: observations, impacts, and adaptation. Geogr Compass 1(6):1227–1251
Zhan J, Huang J, Zhao T, Geng X, Xiong Y (2013) Modeling the impacts of urbanization on regional climate change: a case study in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan metropolitan area. Adv Meteorol. doi:10.1155/2013/849479
Zhang H, Hanaki K, Sato N, Aramaki T (2006) Use of modified RAMS to simulate current and near future thermal environment of ChongQing, China. In: 86th AMS Annual Meeting
Zhang W, Huang B (2015) Land use optimization for a rapidly urbanizing city with regard to local climate change: Shenzhen as a case study. J Urban Plann Dev. doi:10.1061/(asce)up.1943-5444.0000200
Zhao C, Jiang Q, Sun Z, Zhong H, Lu S (2013) Projected urbanization impacts on surface climate and energy budgets in the pearl river delta of China. Adv Meteorol. doi:10.1155/2013/542086
Zhou W, Huang G, Cadenasso ML (2011) Does spatial configuration matter? Understanding the effects of land cover pattern on land surface temperature in urban landscapes. Landsc Urban Plann 102(1):54–63
Zhou W, Wang J, Cadenasso ML (2017) Effects of the spatial configuration of trees on urban heat mitigation: a comparative study. Remote Sens Environ 195:1–12
Acknowledgements
The research was supported by a Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council (DP160102107). SC was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chapman, S., Watson, J.E.M., Salazar, A. et al. The impact of urbanization and climate change on urban temperatures: a systematic review. Landscape Ecol 32, 1921–1935 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-017-0561-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-017-0561-4