The Impact of Urbanization on Extreme Climate Indices in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China

Abstract

Urbanization has been proven to be a critical factor in modifying local or regional climate characteristics. This research aims to examine the impact of urbanization on extreme climate indices in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), China, by using meteorological observation data from 2000 to 2019. Three main steps are involved. First, a clustered threshold method based on remote-sensing nighttime light data is used to extract urban built-up areas, and urban and rural meteorological stations can be identified based on the boundary of urban built-up areas. Nonparametric statistical tests, namely, the Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope, are then applied to measure the trend characteristics of extreme climate indices. Finally, the urbanization contribution rate is employed to quantify the impact of urbanization on extreme climate indices. The results indicate that urbanization has a more serious impact on extreme temperature indices than on extreme precipitation indices in the YREB. For extreme temperature indices, urbanization generally causes more (less) frequent occurrence of warm (cold) events. The impact of urbanization on different extreme temperature indices has heterogeneous characteristics, including the difference in contamination levels and spatial variation of the impacted cities. For extreme precipitation indices, only a few cities impacted by urbanization are detected, but among these cities, urbanization contributes to increasing the trend of all indices.