Urban heat island in the subsurface

The urban heat island effect has received significant attention in recent years due to the possible effect on long‐term meteorological records. Recent studies of this phenomenon have suggested that this may not be important to estimates of regional climate change once data are properly corrected. However, surface air temperatures within urban environments have significant variation, making correction difficult. In the current study, we examine subsurface temperatures in an urban environment and the surrounding rural area to help characterize the nature of this variability. The results of our study indicate that subsurface temperatures are linked to land‐use and supports previous work indicating that the urban heat island effect has significant and complex spatial variability. In most situations, the relationship between subsurface and surface processes cannot be easily determined, indicating that previous studies that relying on such a linkage may require further examination.