Reading a paper this morning and saw two graphs that demonstrates how powerful the ocean currents are in shaping the climate. The Gulf of Alaska and the western part of high-latitude Eurasia are both next to warm currents. They both experience higher precipitation than the eastern parts of the respective continents, and have virtually nowhere with average temperature below 1 degree Celsius in winter.
(images from internet and the paper below)
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015JD024546
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I was plotting a generic map of daytime urban heat island intensity (UHII) today (left, color goes from slightly below 0 to 2.8 degrees). The map turned out to be vastly different from the previously reported spatial patterns, where the UHII clearly increases from the west to the east (right, from Fig. 1 of Zhao et al. 2014, DOI: 10.1038/nature13462).
Then I realized my variable was 2m air temperature, and their variable was land surface temperature. So I recalled another paper that showed the west-east divide in UHII for 2m air temperature (Fig. 3 of Zhao et al. 2018, DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aa9f73). As expected, there was no east-west divide in the UHII shown in the barplot.
Are the well-known evaporative and/or convective cooling effects on UHII in the west only applicable to the land surface temperature?
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Environmental scientist looking at global ecohydrological change using data analysis and modeling tools.