What effects do urban heat islands have on measurements of climate change?
Although most of the really long temperature records available to meteorologists come from in or near urban areas, the weather stations tend to be found in parks and open spaces which are less affected by changes in urbanisation. One study has attempted to see how much the urban heat island effect has affected long temperature records, by comparing the temperatures recorded on calm nighst (big urban heat island effect) with those recorded on windy nights (less urban heat island effect) – this suggested that the long temperature records were not affected by the urban heat island effect. In other words, any long term trends in temperature seen in the records were probably the same as if they had been recorded in a rural area. In the last few decades, data from satellites has been added to the records available to meteorologists. The IPCC concluded in their most recent (2007) climate change report: “Recent studies confirm that effects of urbanisation and land use change on the global temp
