The effects of urbanization on the rise of the European temperature since 1960

• Published in: Geophysical research letters Vol. 41; no. 21; pp. 7716 - 7722
• Main Authors: Chrysanthou, A., van der Schrier, G., van den Besselaar, E. J. M., Klein Tank, A. M. G., Brandsma, T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Blackwell Publishing Ltd 16-11-2014; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: Area; Assessments; Climate; Climate change; Environmental assessment; Europe; Geophysics; Global warming; Growth; Land cover; Low temperature; Mean daily temperatures; Mean temperatures; Meteorology; Rural areas; Seasonal variations; Seasonality; Stations; Summer; Temperature; Temperature effects; Trends; Urban areas; Urbanization; Weather stations; Europe; ANE, Europe
• ISSN: 0094-8276; 1944-8007
• DOI: 10.1002/2014GL061154

The effects of urbanization on the rise of the European daily mean temperature is quantified by comparing European‐averaged temperatures based on all meteorological stations in the European Climate Assessment and Dataset with those based on three subsets of stations: from rural areas, from areas with low growth in urbanization, and from areas characterized by relatively low‐temperature increase. Land cover information is obtained using the CORINE (Coordination of Information on the Environment) data set, showing that most stations (75%) have a small percentage (up to 10%) of urban area within a 10 km radius and 81% saw no more than 1% change in urbanization between 1990 and 2006. The results show that urbanization explains 0.0026°C/decade of the annual‐averaged pan‐European temperature trend of 0.179°C/decade. This trend has a strong seasonality, being the largest in summer. Averaged over time, the effects of urbanization on the European‐averaged temperature has a strong seasonality as well.
Key PointsMost meteorological stations in Europe are in rural surroundingsThe contribution of the urbanization on the warming of Europe is smallThe urbanization‐related warming has strong seasonality