{"id":426994,"date":"2026-02-19T15:01:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=426994"},"modified":"2026-02-19T15:01:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:01:37","slug":"the-university-of-east-anglia-discovers-the-urban-heat-island-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=426994","title":{"rendered":"The University of East Anglia Discovers the Urban Heat Island Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UHI phenomenon- where cities are warmer than surrounding rural areas due to human activities, buildings, paved surfaces absorbing heat, reduced vegetation, and waste heat- was first systematically observed and described in the early 19th century by Luke Howard in his studies of London’s temperatures (around 1810\u20131830). He documented higher urban temperatures, especially at night, compared to rural sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent UEA work (published February 2026 in PNAS) focuses on how climate change amplifies or intensifies the UHI effect in many tropical and subtropical cities under ~2\u00b0C global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the \u201cdecades late and a dollar short\u201d <\/em>department comes the peer-reviewed exercise in the obvious. Of course, UEA was always a little bit slow. If they weren\u2019t, we\u2019d never have been given the gift of \u201cClimategate.\u201d \u2013 Anthony<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Via Eurekalert:<\/a>

Temperature of some cities could rise faster than expected under 2\u00b0C warming<\/strong>
New research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) shows how many tropical cities are predicted to warm faster than expected under 2\u00b0C of global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cities are often warmer than rural areas due to a phenomenon known as the urban heat island, which can be influenced by various factors, such as regional climate and vegetation cover. This can lead to increased heat-related health risks for some urban populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), <\/em>the study<\/a> combined state-of-the-art climate change projections with machine learning models to show how these urban heat islands can be amplified in many tropical and subtropical cities under climate change \u2013 mostly in monsoon regions such as India, China and Western Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers produced projections for 104 medium-sized cities with populations ranging between 300,000 and one million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their results show the day-time land surface temperatures in 81 per cent of these cities are predicted to warm more than surrounding rural areas. In 16 per cent, they may rise between approximately 50 to 100 per cent higher than surrounding areas under 2\u00b0C of global warming, a benchmark likely to be reached in the second half of this century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cities studied are in the warmer parts of the world, which the authors say makes these increases even more significant for human health and the urban environment. Medium-sized cities also represent a large proportion of global cities, with more than 2.5 times as many in this category than those with a population over one million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lead author Dr Sarah Berk, who did the work while a PhD student in UEA\u2019s School of Environmental Sciences, said: \u201cUnder climate change, cities face not only the challenge of increasing temperatures in their surrounding areas, but also the challenge of potential changes in their heat islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, while global climate models are essential for projecting future temperature changes, they are limited in their ability to capture the trends of smaller cities. Even high-resolution global models can only predict changes for the largest urban areas or megacities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo bridge this gap, in our study we projected changes in land surface temperature in medium-sized cities, showing that in many of them, the urban warming rate is faster than rural surroundings,\u201d added Dr Berk, now at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-author Prof Manoj Joshi<\/a>, from the Climatic Research Unit<\/a> at UEA, said: \u201cUrban heat stress under climate change is an increasing concern, as many cities in the tropics and subtropics can be warmer than their rural surroundings, heightening their vulnerability to rising temperatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis analysis shows even state-of-the-art projections likely underestimate future urban warming. For example, our results suggest that several cities in North- East China and northern India are projected to warm by 3\u00b0C, despite Earth System Model projections of their hinterlands showing a warming of 1.5-2\u00b0C.

\u201cOur research enables more informed planning for the future risks to human health and the urban environment, highlighting the need to complement conventional climate modelling with approaches such as machine learning and AI.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof Joshi added: \u201cThese findings also underscore the importance of investigating the effects of climate change on urban heat exposure, since climate change results in an increased frequency of extreme heat events, which can have severe human health impacts including increased mortality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team excluded cities in mountain and coastal regions to remove influences of features such as hills, lakes and oceans, to ensure they captured relationships based on physical processes related to climate, rather than other differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the five largest cities by population, the greatest changes are seen in Jalandhar (India), Fuyang (China) and Kirkuk (Iraq), which experience 0.7-0.8\u00b0C additional change in temperature compared to their rural surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remaining two, Marrakech (Morocco) and Campo Grande (Brazil), see negligible differences between urban warming and that of their surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, other cities experience significantly greater warming, for example Asyut (Egypt), Patiala (India) and Shangqui (China), which experience 1.5-2\u00b0C additional change, which is up to 100 per cent more than their hinterlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council and the ARIES Doctoral Training Partnership. It also involved researchers now at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Amplified warming in tropical and subtropical cities at 2\u00b0C climate change\u2019, by Sarah Berk, Manoj Joshi, Peer Nowack, and Clare Goodess was published in PNAS<\/em> on February 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Journal<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DOI<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

10.1073\/pnas.2502873123 <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The UHI phenomenon- where cities are warmer than surrounding rural areas due to human activities, buildings, paved surfaces absorbing heat, reduced vegetation, and waste heat- was first systematically observed and described in the early 19th century by Luke Howard in his studies of London’s temperatures (around 1810\u20131830). He documented higher urban temperatures, especially at night, compared to rural sites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":286578,"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":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"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":[691818056,691818153,691841503,691841505,691818087,691841504,691831752,691828654],"class_list":{"0":"post-426994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-climate-models","10":"tag-dr-sarah-berk","11":"tag-earth-system-model-projections","12":"tag-global-warming","13":"tag-prof-manoj-joshi","14":"tag-university-of-east-anglia-uea","15":"tag-urban-heat-island-effect-uhi","17":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/0glo-urban-heat-island-effect.webp?fit=1280%2C736&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1N50","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":338783,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=338783","url_meta":{"origin":426994,"position":0},"title":"Right, Washington Post, Rural Areas Are Significantly Cooler Than Cities, But Please Learn How to Convert Celsius to Fahrenheit","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"08\/08\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"An August 3rd article in The Washington Post (WaPo), \u201ctitled Study suggests nearby rural land can cool cities by nearly 30 percent,\u201d admits what others, including The Heartland Institute, have noted for years: rural areas are much cooler than cities. 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Urban Heat Islands Responsible for 65% of Global Warming","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"16\/05\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"A new study from the University of Alabama in Huntsville addresses the question of how much the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is responsible for the higher temperatures at weather stations across the world. 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