Spatial connectivity of urban clusters and regional climate effects

Abstract:

Rapid urbanization in East Asia in past three decades is considered as a remarkable process that featured with expansion of urban clusters and tightened linkages within and among clusters. Such process could lead to much larger scale climate effects, and could even contribute to sub-regional and regional climate change. In large area of urban clusters with significant expansion of built-up in relatively short period, local urban heat islands could contribute to sub-regional climate forcing. Here we use visible/near infrared and thermal infrared satellite data to estimate multiple scale structure of urban clusters, and to assess effects of urban heat islands at local and regional scales in East Asia. Our estimates of urban extent were greater than previously reported in most global datasets. Strong spatial connection and internal expansion were found in major urban clusters in past 30 years, and was accelerated in past 10 years. Many city clusters were merging into each other, with gradual blurring boundaries and disappearing of gaps among member cities. Cities and towns were more connected with roads and commercial corridors, while wildland and urban greens became more isolated as patches among built-up areas. We would argue that in many cases in this region, urban clusters are no longer “islands”, they are now “seas” in term of climate related urban canopy. Urban greens such as parks and plantation were long recognized for their cooling effects that buffer the urban heat island effect, however, such cooling effects tend to be weakened as their patches became smaller and isolated, and over dominated by urban surfaces. There were significant positive relations between urban fraction and urban heat island effects as demonstrated by VNIR and TIR data from multiple satellites. Those new estimates are expected to effectively improve climate simulation for better understanding the impacts of inter-connected urban clusters on air temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and boundary layer height at various scales.

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