Urbanization and regional climate change-linked warming of Indian cities

Abstract

Cities are vulnerable to the compounding effects of both climate change and urbanization. Here we show that urbanization alone has led to an overall 60% enhancement in warming in Indian cities, with eastern Tier-II cities leading the way. Such a difference in the urban contribution to warming over cities across India calls for a differential approach to combat urban warming effectively. This study looks at nighttime land surface temperature in Indian cities to see how much they have warmed. It finds that urbanization has driven 60% additional warming in cities, with medium-sized cities influencing the most.