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.
城市环境位于社会、文化和经济活动的结合点,城市下垫面具有独特的生物物理特征。在城市化过程中持续的基础设施建设导致自然景观被建筑物替代。在过去很长时间,绝大部分城市影响天气气候的研究和城市热岛效应(城市及上空温度高于周边地区)有关。除了城市热岛效应,城市化也影响大气湿度、风、边界层结构、云的形成、污染物扩散、降水和暴雨。在这篇综述文章中,我们阅览了超过五百篇文献,从观测和模拟两个方面,首先介绍了用于城市化及影响研究的数据资料和方法,总结了城市化影响区域气候和极端天气的各个领域的科学要点。我们也例举了在理解城市化影响方面目前存在的主要问题和挑战,提出了相应的未来研究重点和方向。.
Keywords: extreme weather; regional climate; urban flooding; urban heat island; urbanization.
© The Author(s) 2022.