The relationships between urban-rural temperature difference and vegetation in eight cities of the Great Plains

Interpreting the relationship between urban heat island (UHI) and urban vegetation is a basis for understanding the impacts of underlying surfaces on UHL The calculation of UHI intensity (UHII) requires observations from paired stations in both urban and rural areas.Due to the limited number of paired meteorological stations,many studies have used remotely sensed land surface temperature,but these time-series land surface temperature data are often heavily affected by cloud cover and other factors.These factors,together with the algorithm for inversion of land surface temperature,lead to accuracy problems in detecting the UHII,especially in cities with weak UHII.Based on meteorological observations from the Oklahoma Mesonet,a world-class network,we quantified the UHII and trends in eight cities of the Great Plains,USA,where data from at least one pair of urban and rural meteorological stations were available.We examined the changes and variability in urban temperature,UHII,vegetation condition (as measured by enhanced vegetation index,EVI),and evapotranspiration (ET).We found that both UHI and urban cold islands (UCI) occurred among the eight cities during 2000-2014 (as measured by impervious surface area).Unlike what is generally considered,UHII in only three cities significantly decreased as EVI and ET increased (p < 0.1),indicating that the UHI or UCI cannot be completely explained simply from the perspective of the underlying surface.Increased vegetative cover (signaled by EVI) can increase ET,and thereby effectively mitigate the UHI.Each study station clearly showed that the underlying surface or vegetation affects urban-rural temperature,and that these factors should be considered during analysis of the UHI effect over time.

Continued Increases of Gross Primary Production in Urban Areas during 2000-2016

Urbanization affects vegetation within city administrative boundary and nearby rural areas.Gross primary production(GPP)of vegetation in global urban areas is one of important metrics for assessing the impacts of urbanization on terrestrial ecosystems.To date,very limited data and information on the spatial-temporal dynamics of GPP in the global urban areas are available.In this study,we reported the spatial distribution and temporal dynamics of annual GPP during 2000–2016 from 8,182 gridcells(0.5°by 0.5°latitude and longitude)that have various proportion of urban areas.Approximately 79.3%of these urban gridcells had increasing trends of annual GPP during 2000-2016.As urban area proportion(%)within individual urban gridcells increased,the means of annual GPP trends also increased.Our results suggested that for those urban gridcells,the negative effect of urban expansion(often measured by impervious surfaces)on GPP was to large degree compensated by increased vegetation within the gridcells,mostly driven by urban management and local climate and environment.Our findings on the continued increases of annual GPP in most of urban gridcells shed new insight on the importance of urban areas on terrestrial carbon cycle and the potential of urban management and local climate and environment on improving vegetation in urban areas.