Cities only occupy about 3% of the Earth’s total land surface, but they bear the burden of the human-perceived effects of global climate change, researchers said.
Cities only occupy about 3% of the Earth’s total land surface, but they bear the burden of the human-perceived effects of global climate change, researchers said. Global climate models are set up for big-picture analysis, leaving urban areas poorly represented. In a new study, researchers take a closer look at how climate change affects cities by using data-driven statistical models combined with traditional process-driven physical climate models.
The results of the research led by University of Illinois Urbana Champaign engineer Lei Zhao are published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Home to more than 50% of the world’s population, cities experience more heat stress, water scarcity, air pollution and energy insecurity than suburban and rural areas because of their layout and high population densities, the study reports.
“Cities are full of surfaces made from concrete and asphalt that absorb and retain more heat than natural surfaces and perturb other local-scale biophysical processes,” said Zhao, a civil and environmental engineering professor and National Center for Supercomputing Applications affiliate. “Incorporating these types of small-scale variables into climate modeling is crucial for understanding future urban climate. However, finding a way to include them in global-scale models poses major resolution, scale and computational challenges.”
Read more at: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau
A new climate model that makes projections specific to urban areas predicts that by the end of this century, average warming across global cities will increase by 1.9 degrees Celsius to 4.4 C, depending on the rate of emissions. (Photo Credit: Graphic by Michael Vincent)
