Detection of urban warming in recent temperature trends in Japan

Abstract The contribution of urban effects on recent temperature trends in Japan was analysed using data at 561 stations for 27 years (March 1979–February 2006). Stations were categorized according to the population density of surrounding few kilometres. There is a warming trend of 0.3–0.4 °C/decade even for stations with low population density (<100 people per square kilometre), indicating that the recent temperature increase is largely contributed by background climatic change. On the other hand, anomalous warming trend is detected for stations with larger population density. Even for only weakly populated sites with population density of 100–300/km 2 , there is an anomalous trend of 0.03–0.05 °C/decade. This fact suggests that urban warming is detectable not only at large cities but also at slightly urbanized sites in Japan. Copyright © 2008 Royal Meteorological Society