Emergent self-similarity and scaling properties of fractal intra-Urban Heat Islets for diverse global cities

Anamika Shreevastava, P. Suresh C. Rao and Gavan McGrath
Additional contact information
Gavan McGrath: Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions

No t9s3g, Earth Arxiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Urban areas experience elevated temperatures due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. However, temperatures within cities vary considerably and their spatial heterogeneity is not well characterized. Here, we use Land Surface Temperature (LST) of 78 global cities to show that the Surface UHI (SUHI) is fractal. We use percentile-based thermal thresholds to identify heat clusters emerging within SUHI and refer to them collectively as intra-urban heat \textit{islets}. The islets display properties analogous to that of a percolating system as we vary the thermal thresholds. At percolation threshold, the size distribution of these islets in all cities follows a power-law, with a scaling exponent ($\beta$) of 1.88 ($\pm 0.23, 95\% CI$) and an aggregated Perimeter Fractal Dimension ($D$) of 1.33 ($\pm 0.064, 95\% CI$). This commonality indicates that despite the diversity in urban form and function across the world, the urban temperature patterns are different realizations with the same aggregated statistical properties. Furthermore, we observe the convergence of these scaling exponents as the city sizes increase. Therefore, while the effect of diverse urban morphologies is evident in smaller cities, in the mean, the larger cities are alike. Lastly, we calculate the mean islet intensities, i.e. the difference between mean islet temperature and thermal threshold, and show that it follows an exponential distribution, with rate parameter, $\lambda$, for all cities. $\lambda$ varied widely across the cities and can be used to quantify the spatial heterogeneity within SUHIs. In conclusion, we present a basis for a unified characterization of urban heat from the spatial scales of an urban block to a megalopolis.

Date: 2019-09-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://osf.io/download/5d69ccf780f9b50016630f71/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:eartha:t9s3g

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/t9s3g

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Earth Arxiv from Center for Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by OSF ().