Urbanization influence on weather station temperature over Mainland China

Abstract

This study uses the observed temperature data and land use data over Mainland China to evaluate urbanization influence on weather station temperature observations. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land cover product (MCD12Q1) of 2008 is used to extract the urban area data for evaluating the relationship between the urban area and the weather station. Then, weather stations over Mainland China are categorized into different groups. Those groups include Large City group, Medium City group and Small City Group. The study explores the urbanization effects by analyzing annual maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperature series of the station group datasets. The results reveal that there is no considerable difference among those station groups for the Tmax trends for the period from 1984 to 2009. For the same period, the Tmin trends are about 0.7 °C/decade for the Large City group, and only 0.5 °C/decade for Small City group. This study evidences that in a certain extent the urbanization has resulted in over-estimation of Tmin changes.