{"id":284165,"date":"2023-10-20T15:06:18","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T13:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=284165"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:06:20","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T13:06:20","slug":"new-paper-submission-urban-heat-island-effects-in-u-s-summer-temperatures-1880-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=284165","title":{"rendered":"New paper submission: Urban heat island effects in U.S. summer temperatures, 1880-2015"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Urban heat islands concern both the temperature of various surfaces (streets, roofs, etc.) and the atmosphere.\u00a0The absorbed\u00a0heat during the day by the urban infrastructure is given away slowly \u2013 therefore also at night.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From \u00a0Roy Spencer, PhD.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 19th, 2023 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After years of dabbling in this issue, John Christy and I have finally submitted a paper to Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology entitled, \u201cUrban Heat Island Effects in U.S. Summer Surface Temperature Data, 1880-2015<\/em>\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel pretty good about what we\u2019ve done using the GHCN data. We demonstrate that, not only do the homogenized (\u201cadjusted\u201d) dataset not correct for the effect of the urban heat island (UHI) on temperature trends, the adjusted data appear to have even stronger UHI signatures than in the raw (unadjusted) data. This is true of both trends at stations (where there are nearby rural and non-rural stations\u2026 you can\u2019t blindly average all of the stations in the U.S.), and it\u2019s true of the spatial differences between closely-space stations in the same months and years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bottom line is that an estimated 22% of the U.S. warming trend, 1895 to 2023, is due to localized UHI effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the effect is much larger in urban locations. Out of 4 categories of urbanization based upon population density (0.1 to 10, 10-100, 100-1,000, and >1,000 persons per sq. km), the top 2 categories show the UHI temperature trend to be 57% of the reported homogenized GHCN temperature trend. So, as one might expect, a large part of urban (and even suburban) warming since 1895 is due to UHI effects. This impacts how we should be discussing recent \u201crecord hot\u201d temperatures at cities. Some of those would likely not be records if UHI effects were taken into account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, those are the temperatures a majority of the population experiences. My point is, such increasing warmth cannot be wholly blamed on climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things I struggled with was how to deal with stations having sporadic records. I\u2019ve always wondered if one could use year-over-year changes instead of the usual annual-cycle-an-anomaly calculations, and it turns out you can, and with extremely high accuracy. (John Christy says he did it many years ago for a sparse African temperature dataset). This greatly simplifies data processing, and you can use all stations that have at least 2 years of data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now to see if the peer review process deep-sixes the paper. I\u2019m optimistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Urban heat islands concern both the temperature of various surfaces (streets, roofs, etc.) and the atmosphere.\u00a0The absorbed\u00a0heat during the day by the urban infrastructure is given away slowly \u2013 therefore also at night. From \u00a0Roy Spencer, PhD. October 19th, 2023 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. After years of dabbling in this issue, John Christy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":284171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Urban heat islands concern both the temperature of various surfaces (streets, roofs, etc.) and the atmosphere.\u00a0The absorbed\u00a0heat during the day by the urban infrastructure is given away slowly \u2013 therefore also at night.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691823793,691823794,691818161,691821156],"class_list":{"0":"post-284165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-john-christy","9":"tag-summer-temperatures","10":"tag-temperature-trends","11":"tag-urban-heat-island-uhi","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/0shutterstock_666649831-1024x629-1.png?fit=1024%2C629&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1bVj","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":381613,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=381613","url_meta":{"origin":284165,"position":0},"title":"Warmer Summers? 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