by Ian L.M. Goddard & S. Bett, Marcy 21, 2019 in WUWT

Abstract

This study aims to estimate the affect of urbanisation on daily maximum and minimum temperatures in the United Kingdom. Urban fractions were calculated for 10 km × 10 km areas surrounding meteorological weather stations. Using robust regression a linear relationship between urban fraction and temperature difference between station measurements and ERA‐Interim reanalysis temperatures was estimated.

For an urban fraction of 1.0, the daily minimum 2‐m temperature was estimated to increase by 1.90 ± 0.88 K while the daily maximum temperature was not significantly affected by urbanisation. This result was then applied to the whole United Kingdom with a maximum T _min urban heat island intensity (UHII) of about 1.7K in London and with many UK cities having T _min UHIIs above one degree.

This paper finds through the method of observation minus reanalysis that urbanisation has significantly increased the daily minimum 2‐m temperature in the United Kingdom by up to 1.70 K.

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Figure 5 Map showing the change in T _min due to the urbanisation at the 10 km × 10 km scale over the United Kingdom and Ireland. The colour bar shows the magnitude of the temperature change in K