Seasonal hysteresis of surface urban heat islands
Abstract
Urban heat islands represent a major threat to public health with implications for energy consumption and climate adaptation policies. A ubiquitous feature in the seasonality of surface urban heat islands (SUHIs) is distinctive hysteretic cycles between urban and rural surface temperature that still await a general explanation. A coarse-grained model of SUHI serving as a minimalist representation of urban-rural seasonal dynamics based on urban scaling laws and mass/energy conservation principles is proposed to explore this hysteretic behavior. It is shown that such hysteresis is controlled by time lags between energy (radiation/temperature) and water (rainfall) availability. The model largely explains the observed seasonal patterns in amplitude and looping direction and provides general guidance for SUHI reduction across cities and climates.
- Publication:
-
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- March 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.1917554117
- Bibcode:
- 2020PNAS..117.7082M