Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Trends of urban surface temperature and heat island characteristics in the Mediterranean

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Theoretical and Applied Climatology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Urban air temperature studies usually focus on the urban canopy heat island phenomenon, whereby the city center experiences higher near surface air temperatures compared to its surrounding non-urban areas. The Land Surface Temperature (LST) is used instead of urban air temperature to identify the Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI). In this study, the nighttime LST and SUHI characteristics and trends in the seventeen largest Mediterranean cities were investigated, by analyzing satellite observations for the period 2001–2012. SUHI averages and trends were based on an innovative approach of comparing urban pixels to randomly selected non-urban pixels, which carries the potential to better standardize satellite-derived SUHI estimations. A positive trend for both LST and SUHI for the majority of the examined cities was documented. Furthermore, a 0.1 °C decade−1 increase in urban LST corresponded to an increase in SUHI by about 0.04 °C decade−1. A longitudinal differentiation was found in the urban LST trends, with higher positive values appearing in the eastern Mediterranean. Examination of urban infrastructure and development factors during the same period revealed correlations with SUHI trends, which can be used to explain differences among cities. However, the majority of the cities examined show considerably increased trends in terms of the enhancement of SUHI. These findings are considered important so as to promote sustainable urbanization, as well as to support the development of heat island adaptation and mitigation plans in the Mediterranean.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Benas N, Chrysoulakis N (2015) Estimation of the land surface albedo changes in the broader Mediterranean area, based on 12 years of satellite observations. Remote Sens 7(12):16150–16163. doi:10.3390/rs71215816

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bontemps S, Defourny P, Brockmann C, Herold M, Kalogirou V, Arino O (2012a) New global land cover mapping exercise in the framework of the ESA climate change initiative. Geoscience and remote sensing symposium (IGARSS), 2012. IEEE Int:44–47. doi:10.1109/IGARSS.2012.6351640

  • Bontemps S, Defourny P, Van Bogaert E, Arino O, Kalogirou V, Perez JR (2011) GLOBCOVER 2009: Products description and validation report. European Space Agency and Université catholique de Louvain

  • Bontemps S, Herold M, Kooistra L, Van Groenestijn A, Hartley A, Arino O, Moreau I, Defourny P (2012b) Revisiting land cover observation to address the needs of the climate modeling community. Biogeosciences 9:2145–2157. doi:10.5194/bg-9-2145-2012

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cantos JO, Molina CA (2004) The meteorological importance of sea-breezes in the Levant region of Spain. Weather 59:282–286. doi:10.1256/wea.176.03

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chrysoulakis N (2003) Estimation of the all-wave urban surface radiation balance by use of ASTER multispectral imagery and in situ spatial data. J Geophys Res 108:4582. doi:10.1029/2003JD003396

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chrysoulakis N et al. (2013) Sustainable urban metabolism as a link between bio-physical sciences and urban planning: the BRIDGE project. Landsc Urban Plan 112:100–117. doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2012.12.005

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chrysoulakis N et al. (2014) A conceptual list of indicators for urban planning and management based on earth observation. ISPRS Int J Geo-Inf 3:980–1002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chrysoulakis N et al (2015) A novel approach for anthropogenic heat flux estimation from space. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Urban Climate jointly with 12th Symposium on the Urban Environment, Toulouse, France

  • Chrysoulakis N, Grimmond CSB (2016) Understanding and reducing the anthropogenic heat emission. In: Santamouris M, Kolokotsa D (eds) Urban Climate Mitigation Techniques. Routledge, Taylor & Francis, London ISBN 978–0-415–71213–2, pp. 27–39

    Google Scholar 

  • Clinton N, Gong P (2013) MODIS detected surface urban heat islands and sinks: global locations and controls. Remote Sens Environ 134:294–304. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2013.03.008

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coll C, Wan Z, Galve JM (2009) Temperature-based and radiance-based validations of the V5 MODIS land surface temperature product. J Geophys Res 114:D20102. doi:10.1029/2009JD012038

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Founda D, Giannakopoulos C (2009) The exceptionally hot summer of 2007 in Athens, Greece – atypical summer in the future climate? Glob Planet Change 67:227–236

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friedl MA, Sulla-Menashe D, Tan B, Schneider A, Ramankutty N, Sibley A, Huang X (2010) MODIS collection 5 global land cover: algorithm refinements and characterization of new datasets. Remote Sens Environ 114:168–182. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2009.08.016

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Georgescu M, Morefield PE, Bierwagen BG, Weaver CP (2014) Urban adaptation can roll back warming of emerging megapolitan regions. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 111:2909–2914. doi:10.1073/pnas.1322280111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • GlobCOVER ESA Data User Element. http://due.esrin.esa.int/page_globcover.php. Accessed 10 November 2015

  • Good P (2013) Permutation tests: a practical guide to Resampling methods for testing hypotheses. Springer Series in Statistics, Springer New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimmond CSB (2007) Urbanization and global environmental change: local effects of urban warming. Geogr J 173:83–88. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4959.2007.232_3.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hutchinson MF, de Hoog FR (1985) Smoothing noisy data with Spline functions. Numer Math 47:99–106

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Iamarino M, Beevers S, Grimmond CSB (2012) High-resolution (space, time) anthropogenic heat emissions: London 1970 - 2025. Int J Climatol 32(11):1754–1767. doi:10.1002/joc.2390

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2012) Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation. A special report of working groups I and II of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, NY, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • Kalnay E, Cai M (2003) Impact of urbanization and land-use change on climate. Nature 423:528–531

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kottek M, Grieser J, Beck C, Rudolf B, Rubel F (2006) World map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification updated. Meteorol Z 15:259–263. doi:10.1127/0941-2948/2006/0130

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li ZL, Tang BH, Wu H, Ren H, Yan G, Wan Z, Trigo IF, Sobrino JA (2013) Satellite-derived land surface temperature: current status and perspectives. Remote Sens Environ 131:14–37. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2012.12.008

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mackey CW, Lee X, Smith RB (2012) Remotely sensing the cooling effects of city scale efforts to reduce urban heat island. Build Environ 49:348–358. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2011.08.004

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitraka Z, Chrysoulakis N, Doxani G, Del Frate F, Berger M (2015) Urban surface temperature time series estimation at the local scale by spatial-spectral unmixing of satellite observations. Remote Sens 7(4):4139–4156. doi:10.3390/rs70404139

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Musial JP, Verstraete MM, Gobron N (2011) Technical note: comparing the effectiveness of recent algorithms to fill and smooth incomplete and noisy time series. Atmos Chem Phys 11:7905–7923. doi:10.5194/acp-11-7905-2011

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Papanastasiou DK, Melas D (2009) Climatology and impact on air quality of sea breeze in an urban coastal environment. Int J Climatol 29:305–315. doi:10.1002/joc.1707

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Papanastasiou DK, Melas D, Bartzanas T, Kittas C (2010) Temperature, comfort and pollution levels during heat waves and the role of sea breeze. Int J Biometeorol 54:307–317. doi:10.1007/s00484-009-0281-9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peng S, Piao S, Ciais P, Friedlingstein P, Ottle C, Breon FM, Nan H, Zhou L, Myneni RB (2012) Surface urban heat island across 419 global big cities. Environ Sci Technol 46:696–703. doi:10.1021/es2030438

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pigeon G, Lemonsu A, Masson V, Durand P (2003) Sea–town interactions over Marseille-Part II: Consequences on atmospheric structure near the surface. Proc of the 5th Int Conf on Urban Climate, Lodz, Poland

  • Roberts SM, Oke TR, Grimmond CSB, Voogt JA (2006) Comparison of four methods to estimate urban heat storage. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 45:1766–1781. doi:10.1175/JAM2432.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwarz N, Lautenbach S, Seppelt R (2011) Exploring indicators for quantifying surface urban heat islands of European cities with MODIS land surface temperatures. Remote Sens Environ 115(12):3175–3186

  • Seto KC, Christensen P (2013) Remote sensing science to inform urban climate change mitigation strategies. Urban Climate 3:1–6. doi:10.1016/j.uclim.2013.03.001

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sobrino JA, Julien Y (2013) Time series corrections and analyses in thermal remote sensing. In: Kuenzer C, Dech S (eds) Thermal infrared remote sensing: sensors. Methods, Applications. Springer, pp. 267–285

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Stathopoulou M, Cartalis C (2007) Use of satellite remote sensing in support of urban heat island studies. Adv Build Energy Res 1:203–212. doi:10.1080/17512549.2007.9687275

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stewart ID, Oke TR (2012) Local climate zones for urban temperature studies. Bull Am Meteor Soc 93:1879–1900. doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00019.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stone B (2009) Land use as climate change mitigation. Environ Sci Technol 43:9052–9056. doi:10.1021/es902150g

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stone B, Vargo J, Habeeb D (2012) Managing climate change in cities: will climate action plans work? Landsc Urban Plan 107:263–271. doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2012.05.014

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomlinson CJ, Chapman L, Thornes JE, Bakera C (2011) Remote sensing land surface temperature for meteorology and climatology: a review. Meteor Appl 18:296–306. doi:10.1002/met.287

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trenberth KE (2011) Changes in precipitation with climate change. Clim Res 47:123–138. doi:10.3354/cr00953

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2014) World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, Highlights (ST/ESA/SER.A/352)

  • Voogt JA, Oke TR (2003) Thermal remote sensing of urban climates. Remote Sens Environ 86:370–384. doi:10.1016/S0034-4257(03)00079-8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wan Z (2007) Collection-5 MODIS Land Surface Temperature Products Users’ Guide. Institute for Computational Earth System Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

  • Wan Z (2008) New refinements and validation of the collection-6 MODIS land-surface temperature/emissivity product. Remote Sens Environ 112:59–74. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2013.08.027

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weng Q (2009) Thermal infrared remote sensing for urban climate and environmental studies: methods, applications, and trends. ISPRS J Photogramm 64:335–344. doi:10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2009.03.007

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Development Indicators (2014) http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators. Accessed 11 December 2015

  • Yang J, Gong P, Fu R, Zhang M, Chen J, Liang S, Xu B, Shi J, Dickinson R (2013) The role of satellite remote sensing in climate change studies. Nat Clim Chang 3:875–883. doi:10.1038/nclimate1908

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou B, Rybski D, Kropp JP (2013) On the statistics of urban heat island intensity. Geophys Res Lett 40:5486–5491. doi:10.1002/2013GL057320

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was performed in the framework of the PEFYKA project within the KRIPIS Action of the GSRT. The project is funded by Greece and the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union under the NSRF and the O.P. Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship. The MODIS MOD11A2 product files were obtained from the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/dataset_discovery/modis/modis_products_table/ mod11a2). The GlobCOVER V2.3 product files were obtained from the ESA Data User Element web page (http://due.esrin.esa.int/page_globcover.php).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH), Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics, N. Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton, 70013, Heraklion, Greece

    Nikolaos Benas & Nektarios Chrysoulakis

  2. Department of Environmental Physics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Build PHYS-5, 15784, Athens, Greece

    Constantinos Cartalis

Authors
  1. Nikolaos Benas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nektarios Chrysoulakis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Constantinos Cartalis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nektarios Chrysoulakis.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Benas, N., Chrysoulakis, N. & Cartalis, C. Trends of urban surface temperature and heat island characteristics in the Mediterranean. Theor Appl Climatol 130, 807–816 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1905-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1905-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation