What are the effects of urbanization towards local climate?

If, undoubtedly, urbanization is likely to exert an influence towards local climate, it is necessary to investigate and check how much and by which means the effects will be produced. At first glance, discarding the effects of buildings, we can start thinking about our daily activities.

Everyday, in all metropolis of the world, we use buses, trains, cars, motorcycles and so on to arrive to our work places. Moreover, every activity we develop, regardless it is inside a factory, or an office desk work, results in dispersion of sensible heat. The case of plants is obvious, however, we might have hardly perceived the effects of computers in offices, which is not negligible, or it should not be.

Therefore, one of the main questions would be: HOW can we diminish this environmental burden?

A second question, not less important than the first, is: how big is this impact?

Regarding the first question, technologies such as hydrogen powered cars, hybrid cars, the extensive use of solar panels may point out some incremental improvements. Obviously, it is the most important question.

Nevertheless, regarding the second question, I can provide some hints and results. Before answering it, the daily discharges of heat can be named anthropogenic heat. However, we should also remember that this heat can be also released in latent form, so we will name it as anthropogenic water. Considering this two kinds of discharged heat means that the total amount can be called by anthropogenic energy.

What are the effects of the anthropogenic energy? Obviously, according to the local climate and affluence, it can greatly vary, however, in a research using the software Weather Research and Forecast model (WRF) I established a comparison between 3 cases, but, let's first analyze the influence of our daily activities by means of measuring anthropogenic energy effects on air temperature.

I conducted an experiment encompassing an area of 100 km x 100 km in Kanto Area, encompassing the main cities of Tokyo, Yokohama and Chiba. The impacts of anthropogenic energy can be of great relevance, since it increased the average air temperature at 2 meters in Tokyo by 0.36℃.

Obviously, there are uncertainties due to the spatial resolution and the data per se, however, we cannot neglect the enormous impact of our daily activities.

The question that arises as a great challenge is: how can we diminish the burden towards the local environment coming from our daily activities?