Climate scientists at the Jackson School of Geosciences address common myths about climate change in this eight part series.
Myth No. 6: The urban heat island effect or other land use changes can explain the observed warming.
The urban heat island effect is a well documented phenomenon caused by roads and buildings absorbing more heat than undeveloped land and vegetation. It causes cities to be warmer than surrounding countryside and can even influence rainfall patterns.
Perhaps, the argument goes, ground based weather stations have been systematically measuring a rise in temperature not from a global effect but from local land use changes.
Climate scientists do make corrections to weather station data based on the urban heat island effect. But what if they aren’t correcting enough?
Rong Fu, an expert in climate observations, noted scientists observe the greatest rates of warming in some of the least populated areas, such as the Arctic and southern Africa. Those trends can’t be explained by land use change or the urban heat island effect. Also, if you remove all ground based weather stations that are within six kilometers of populations over 30,000 people, on the assumption that these are the stations most likely to be affected by the urban heat island effect, the warming trends remain essentially the same.
You are invited to post comments and follow-up questions on this site. You can also e-mail climate scientists questions. The scientists cannot respond to all questions individually but will address recurring themes with new entries.