Land-Atmosphere interactions in urban areas

We model and evaluate the interactions between urban surface physical characteristics and components of the surface climate. We combine Landsat and MODIS data to characterize urban surfaces and describe the vegetation and its phenology in a biospheric model. This presentation focuses on the impacts of urbanization on the terrestrial carbon uptake, surface water runoff, and the surface temperature. We show that in the continental US (CONUS), the carbon sequestration lost to urban land transformation represents 1.8% of the total. The simulations indicate that impervious surfaces expel about 12% of rainwater as surface runoff compared to only 3.2% over natural lands; and continental-scale summer average monthly mean temperature in cities is 1.9 ° C ± 0.6 ° C warmer than in surrounding rural areas.