Comparison and Generalisation of Spatial Patterns of the Urban Heat Island Based on Normalized Values
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Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 35 (2010) 107–114 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Physics and Chemistry of the Earth journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pce Comparison and generalisation of spatial patterns of the urban heat island based on normalized values János Unger a,*, Zoltán Sümeghy a, Sándor Szegedi b, Andrea Kiss c, Róbert Géczi c a Department of Climatology and Landscape Ecology, University of Szeged, P.O. Box 653, H-6701 Szeged, Hungary b Department of Meteorology, University of Debrecen, P.O. Box 13, H-4010 Debrecen, Hungary c Department of Physical Geography and Geoinformatics, University of Szeged, P.O. Box 653, H-6701 Szeged, Hungary article info abstract Article history: The studied medium-sized cities (Szeged and Debrecen, Hungary) are located on a low and flat plain. Data Available online 6 March 2010 were collected by mobile measurements in grid networks under different weather conditions between April 2002 and March 2003 in the time of maximum development of the urban heat island (UHI). Tasks Keywords: included: (i) interpretation and comparison of the average UHI intensity fields using absolute and nor- Urban heat island malized values; (ii) classification of individual temperature patterns into generalized types by cities using Szeged normalization and cross-correlation. According to our results, spatial distribution of the annual and sea- Debrecen (Hungary) sonal mean UHI intensity fields in the studied period have concentric shape with some local irregulari- Normalization ties. The UHI pattern classification reveals that several types of the structure can be distinguished in Cross-correlation UHI types both cities. Shifts in the shape of patterns in comparison with the centralized pattern are in connection with the prevailing wind directions. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction 1940s (Balchin and Pye, 1947). In order to show the detailed spatial distribution of the UHI within an urban area it is necessary to pos- Urbanization modifies materials, structure and energy-balance sess a temperature data set in an appropriate (small-scale) resolu- of the surface and composition of the atmosphere compared to the tion. To resolve this task, determination of the surface and near- surrounding ‘natural’ environments. These artificial alterations surface air UHI by moving observation with different vehicles determine a distinguished local climate in cities, which is called (bicycle, car, tram) is a common process (Schmidt, 1930; Duck- as urban climate. The climate modification effect of urbanization worth and Sandberg, 1954; Park, 1986; Unger et al., 2001b), but is most obvious in case of the temperature excess (urban heat there are some (but rare) examples for a dense station network island – UHI), which is quantified by the UHI intensity (namely DT, (Mikami et al., 2003) and for the evaluations of airborne and satel- the temperature difference between urban and rural areas). lite images taken in the appropriate wavelengths (remote sensing) Different level of the UHI can be observed from couple of meters (Voogt and Oke, 1997; Chen et al., 2006). under the surface to 200–300 m above the surface. In the present The first objective of this paper is to show certain differences in investigation, the urban modification of the near surface (1.5– the interpretation of the urban heat island using absolute and nor- 2 m above ground level) temperature will be discussed, which malized temperature values. The second objective is to make a can be detected in the immediate environment of humans living simple analysis to distinguish typical UHI patterns based on nor- in settlements. Generally, its intensity has a diurnal course with malized values and cross-correlation using 1 year comprehensive a strongest development at 3–5 h after sunset (Oke, 1987). temperature measurements in two cities (Szeged and Debrecen) Presentation of the UHI by isotherms showing the spatial distri- of Hungary. bution and magnitude of the temperature excess relative to the surroundings of the city is well illustrated: the more or less circular and closed lines remind us on the topographical appearance of is- 2. Question of interpretation and demonstration of the spatial lands or hills on contour maps. The first demonstration of such pre- structure of UHI sentation goes back to the 1920s (Peppler, 1929), whereas the name of the urban heat island itself was first published in the Beside the morphology and material of urban surface and anthropogenic activity, the strength and structural features of the UHI development depend – similar to other local climatic phenom- * Corresponding author. Tel.: +36 62 544857; fax: +36 62 544624. ena – on the prevailing weather conditions: above all on cloudiness E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Unger). and wind which influence the radiation processes and turbulent 1474-7065/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pce.2010.03.001 108 J. Unger et al. / Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 35 (2010) 107–114 mixing of the air. The artificial urban surface can be characterized but slightly extreme example that the ‘general’ picture obtained by by numerous types of measures which indicate alterations from this method, is not an ‘average’ picture (Fig. 1). In this context, the the natural surface (e.g. material, covering, built-up features, 3D background of drawing of the UHI fields and the normalization will geometry, land use) (Bottyán and Unger, 2003; Eliasson and Svens- be discussed in Sections 3 and 4, respectively. son, 2003). These all affect the energy-balance and, as a conse- The question is based on the fact that the (absolute) UHI inten- quence, the value of the forming temperature at a given urban sities were very different (1.60 and 6.81 °C) (Fig. 1a and b); thus, place. the values of the second case dominate in the average values calcu- Nevertheless, merely on the basis of only a few case studies lated for the points of the investigated area (Fig. 1c). For this reason general deductions cannot be drawn on the intra-urban variation the obtained ‘average’ UHI pattern reminds us to the pattern of the of temperature. Naturally, the isotherms can be drawn in the second case. That is, the UHI fields of the two cases appear in the above-mentioned cases, too. Thus, it provides a picture on the ‘average’ picture with different weight. structure which reflects the spatial distribution of the UHI at a cer- tain moment. This momentary situation is derived from the com- bined effect of the relatively permanent surface features 3. UHI database changing spatially and the weather conditions changing tempo- rally. These individual patterns, referring to the same urban area, 3.1. Study areas (Szeged, Debrecen), grid networks can be sharp (strong UHI – favourable weather conditions) or faded (weak UHI – unfavourable weather conditions), as well as shifted Szeged is located in the south-eastern part of Hungary (46°N, depending on the prevailing air flow. 20°E) at 79 m above sea level on a flat plain. River Tisza passes Therefore, if we would like to present a general (average) pic- through the city; otherwise, there are no large water bodies near- ture on the development of the UHI and the typical temperature by. The river is relatively narrow and – according to earlier inves- patterns in a given area, these patterns have to be determined tigations – its climatic influence is negligible (Unger et al., 2001b). not from one or two, but from numerous cases. In this case, the The number of inhabitants is 160,000. Debrecen (47.5°N, 21.5°E) question is how we can achieve the goal to make the resulted pat- lies in the north-east region of the country at 120 m above the terns reflect really the main spatial features of the UHI. sea level on a nearly flat terrain. It is the second largest city in Hun- The answer could come easily if we apply a simple and com- gary and has a population of 220,000 (Fig. 2). monly applied method on averaging of the values by points, then Regions of both cities are categorized in Köppen’s climatic re- the obtained temperature field can be regarded as a typical pattern gion as Cf (temperate warm climate with a rather uniform annual of the UHI referred on a given urban area (Park, 1986; Steinecke, distribution of precipitation). In Szeged and Debrecen the annual 1999; Mikami et al., 2003). Here, it is demonstrated with a simple, mean temperatures are 10.5 °C and 9.9 °C with annual ranges of Fig. 1. Areal distributions of the absolute (°C) and the normalized UHI intensities on 24 February 2003 and on 24 March in Szeged: absolute values (a, b), average of absolute values (c), normalized average of absolute values (d), normalized values (e, f) and average of normalized values (g). Sites of maximum value of DTnorm (=1) are indicated by . J. Unger et al. / Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 35 (2010) 107–114 109 Fig. 2. Locations of Szeged and Debrecen in Europe (a) and in Hungary (b), as well as division of the study areas into 0.5 Â 0.5 km grid cells in Debrecen (c) and in Szeged (d) urban areas are marked by grey and rural cells are indicated by R. 22.6 °C and 22.9 °C, the mean precipitation amounts are 495 mm where Tcell and TR are the temperatures of a given urban cell and cell and 566 mm, respectively. R, respectively (Fig. 2). The obtained DT values were related to the These environmental conditions make Szeged and Debrecen cell centre points. The rural cell (R) in Debrecen is a bit nearer to the favourable places for studying of clear urban climate development.