Abstract
Supported by the rapid economic development in the last few decades, China has become the largest energy consumer in the world. Alongside this, the effect of the anthropogenic heat released from energy consumption is increasingly apparent. We quantified the daytime and nighttime surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) for the 32 major cities in mainland China, using MODIS land surface temperature data from 2008 to 2012, and estimated the energy consumption intensity (ECI) based on the correlation between energy consumption and the sum of nighttime lights. On this basis, the impact of energy consumption on the surface urban heat island in China’s 32 major cities was analyzed, by directly examining the relationship between SUHII and the urban-suburban difference in ECI. The results show that energy consumption has a significantly positive correlation with the nighttime SUHII, but no correlation with the daytime SUHII. It indicates that the cities with a larger urban-suburban difference in ECI have a far greater impact on SUHII during the nighttime. Therefore, the statistical analysis of the historical observation data in this study provides evidence for a long-held hypothesis that the anthropogenic heat released from energy consumption is an important contributor to the urban thermal environment.
Highlights
With the advance of global urbanization, an increasing consumption of natural resources and energy in the past 100 years has reached unprecedented levels in the human history
The results show that nighttime light has no correlation with the daytime surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) (R = 0.05, p = 0.77), while it had a positive correlation with the nighttime SUHII
We investigated the impact of energy consumption on the surface urban heat island in these cities, by directly exploring the correlation between SUHII and the urban-suburban difference in energy consumption intensity (ECI)
Summary
With the advance of global urbanization, an increasing consumption of natural resources and energy in the past 100 years has reached unprecedented levels in the human history. The process of urbanization is linked to the changes in land surface properties, for example, heat storage, soil moisture, and albedo. The UHI effect can have impacts on weather and climate [5], increase the energy usage in comparatively hot regions, and impair nearby water quality [6] and the health of urban residents [7,8]. It increases subsurface temperatures and alters the groundwater system both chemically and microbiologically, via geochemical and geobiological reactions under the city [9]
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