Urbanization Impact on Regional Climate and Extreme Weather: Current Understanding, Uncertainties, and Future Research Directions

Urban environments lie at the confluence of social, cultural, and economic activities and have unique biophysical characteristics due to continued infrastructure development that generally replaces natural landscapes with built-up structures. The vast majority of studies on urban perturbation of loc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in atmospheric sciences 2022, Vol.39 (6), p.819-860
Main Authors: Qian, Yun, Chakraborty, T. C., Li, Jianfeng, Li, Dan, He, Cenlin, Sarangi, Chandan, Chen, Fei, Yang, Xuchao, Leung, L. Ruby
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air pollution
Atmospheric models
Atmospheric moisture
Atmospheric Sciences
Boundary layer structure
Boundary layers
Climate
Climatic extremes
Cloud formation
Clouds
Confluence
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Economic activities
Extreme weather
Geophysics/Geodesy
Heat waves
Local climates
Meteorology
Moisture effects
Perturbation
Pollutants
Regional climates
Review
Storms
Temperature effects
Urban areas
Urban environments
Urban heat islands
Urbanization
Weather
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Summary:Urban environments lie at the confluence of social, cultural, and economic activities and have unique biophysical characteristics due to continued infrastructure development that generally replaces natural landscapes with built-up structures. The vast majority of studies on urban perturbation of local weather and climate have been centered on the urban heat island (UHI) effect, referring to the higher temperature in cities compared to their natural surroundings. Besides the UHI effect and heat waves, urbanization also impacts atmospheric moisture, wind, boundary layer structure, cloud formation, dispersion of air pollutants, precipitation, and storms. In this review article, we first introduce the datasets and methods used in studying urban areas and their impacts through both observation and modeling and then summarize the scientific insights on the impact of urbanization on various aspects of regional climate and extreme weather based on more than 500 studies. We also highlight the major research gaps and challenges in our understanding of the impacts of urbanization and provide our perspective and recommendations for future research priorities and directions.
ISSN:0256-1530
1861-9533
DOI:10.1007/s00376-021-1371-9