Impacts of Land Use and Cover Change on Land Surface Temperature in the Zhujiang Delta

Remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) technologies were used to detect land use/cover changes (LUCC) and to assess their impacts on land surface temperature (LST) in the Zhujiang Delta. Multi-temporal Landsat TM and Landsat ETM+ data were employed to identify patterns of LUCC as well as to quantify urban expansion and the associated decrease of vegetation cover. The thermal infrared bands of the data were used to retrieve LST. The results revealed a strong and uneven urban growth,which caused LST to raise 4.56℃in the newly urbanized part of the study area. Overall, remote sensing and GIS technologies were effective approaches for monitoring and analyzing urban growth patterns and evaluating their impacts on LST.

On Urban Heat Island of Beijng Based on Landsat TM Data

Land surface temperature (LST) of Beijing area was retrieved from Landsat TM thermal band data utilizing a radiative transfer equation and the urban heat island (HUI) effects of Beijing and its relationship with land cover and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were discussed. The result of LST showed that the urban LST was evidently higher than the suburban one. The average urban LST was found to 4.5 ℃ and 9 ℃ higher than the suburban and outer suburban temperature, respectively, which demonstrated the prominent UHI effects in Beijing. Prominent negative correlation between LST and NDVI was found in the urban area, which suggested the low percent vegetation cover in the urban area was the main cause of the urban heat island.

A Seasonal Prediction Model for the Summer Rainfall in Northeast China Using the Year-To-Year Increment Approach

Using the year-to-year increment approach,this study investigated the relationship of selected climatic elements with the increment time series of the summer rainfall between successive years in Northeast China,including the soil moisture content,sea surface temperature,500 hPa geopotential height,and sea level pressure in the preceding spring for the period 1981-2008.Two spring predictors were used to construct the seasonal prediction model:the area mean soil moisture content in Northwest Eurasia and the 500 hPa geopotential height over Northeast China.Both the cross-validation and comparison with previous studies showed that the above two predictors have good predicting ability for the summer rainfall in Northeast China.

Subdaily to Seasonal Change of Surface Energy and Water Flux of the Haihe River Basin in China: Noah and Noah-MP Assessment

The land surface processes of the Noah-MP and Noah models are evaluated over four typical landscapes in the Haihe River Basin(HRB) using in-situ observations. The simulated soil temperature and moisture in the two land surface models(LSMs) is consistent with the observation, especially in the rainy season. The models reproduce the mean values and seasonality of the energy fluxes of the croplands, despite the obvious underestimated total evaporation. Noah shows the lower deep soil temperature. The net radiation is well simulated for the diurnal time scale. The daytime latent heat fluxes are always underestimated, while the sensible heat fluxes are overestimated to some degree. Compared with Noah, Noah-MP has improved daily average soil heat flux with diurnal variations. Generally, Noah-MP performs fairly well for different landscapes of the HRB. The simulated cold bias in soil temperature is possibly linked with the parameterized partition of the energy into surface fluxes. Thus, further improvement of these LSMs remains a major challenge.