Urban climate modifications in hot desert cities: The role of land cover, local climate, and seasonality

Abstract Urban climate modifications like the urban heat island (UHI) have been extensively investigated in temperate regions. In contrast, the understanding of how urbanization relates to climate in hot, hyperarid environments is still extremely limited, despite the growing socioeconomic relevance of arid lands and their fast urbanization rate. We explore here the relationship between land cover and temperature regime in hot desert cities (HDCs) based on estimates of land surface temperature, normalized difference vegetation index, and impervious surface areas inferred from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Landsat satellite products. Our analysis shows that HDCs display common climatic patterns, with downtown areas on average cooler than suburbs during the daytime (urban cool island) and warmer at night (classical UHI). The observed diurnal cool island effect can be largely explained by relative vegetation abundance, percentage of bare soil, and local climatic conditions and calls for a more in deep investigation of the physical processes regulating boundary layer dynamics in arid regions.