INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY

Int. J. Climatol. 29: 1811–1822 (2009)

Published online 17 December 2008 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/joc.1822

Detection of urban warming in recent temperature trends in

Japan
Fumiaki Fujibe*
Meteorological Research Institute, Tsukuba 305-0052, Japan

ABSTRACT: The contribution of urban effects on recent temperature trends in Japan was analysed using data at 561
stations for 27 years (March 1979–February 2006). Stations were categorized according to the population density of
surrounding few kilometres. There is a warming trend of 0.3–0.4 ° C/decade even for stations with low population
density (<100 people per square kilometre), indicating that the recent temperature increase is largely contributed by
background climatic change. On the other hand, anomalous warming trend is detected for stations with larger population
density. Even for only weakly populated sites with population density of 100–300/km2 , there is an anomalous trend
of 0.03–0.05 ° C/decade. This fact suggests that urban warming is detectable not only at large cities but also at slightly
urbanized sites in Japan. Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society

KEY WORDS urban warming; urban temperature; urban heat island; temperature trend; Japan; AMeDAS
Received 26 October 2007; Revised 3 April 2008; Accepted 30 October 2008

1. Introduction
It is widely recognized that cities have a warmer cli-
mate than rural areas. Features of urban climates, includ-
ing urban heat islands, have received extensive studies
(Landsberg, 1981; Oke, 1987). The urban–rural temper-
ature difference can reach 10 ° C at large cities, while
some temperature anomalies are detectable even for small
towns of population less than 1000 people (Oke, 1973;
Sakakibara and Matsui, 2005).
On the global scale, urban areas are so localized
that their influence on climatic change is believed to
be negligible (IPCC, 2007). Nevertheless, still there is
controversy about urban bias in observed temperature
changes, because many observation sites are located at
cities. Anomalous temperature trends at urban sites have
been found in many regions of the world (Karl et al.,
1988; Hansen et al., 2001; DeGaetano and Allen, 2002;
Kim and Baik, 2002; Choi et al., 2003; Zhou et al., 2004;
Griffiths et al., 2005; Lim et al., 2005; Hale et al., 2006;
Hua et al., 2007; Ren et al., 2007). On the other hand,
a number of recent studies reported no or insignificant
urban effects in climatic temperature data (Peterson et al.,
1999; Peterson, 2003; Li et al., 2004; Pepin and Seidel,
2005; Peterson and Owen, 2005; Parker, 2006).
In Japan, which has experienced rapid industrialization
during the last century, urban warming is quite conspic-
uous in large cities (Kawamura, 1985; Yamashita, 1996;
Fujibe, 1995, 1997; Ooka, 2007). The annual mean tem-
perature trend at Tokyo, where the observatory is in the
* Correspondence to: Fumiaki Fujibe, Meteorological Research Insti-
tute, Tsukuba 305-0052, Japan. E-mail: ffujibe@mri-jma.go.jp
central business area of the city, has risen with a lin-
ear trend of 0.31 ° C/decade, namely, 3.1 ° C/century for
1906–2006 (Figure 1). This value is substantially larger
than those at non-urbanized sites. For example, the trend
at Hachijo Island, 300 km south of Tokyo (Figure 2,
shown in the next section), is only 0.06 ° C/decade for
the same period. Trends of 0.2–0.3 ° C/decade are also
found for other large cities in Japan (Fujibe, 1995, 1997;
Kato, 1996; JMA, 2007).
Urban anomalies in temperature data have also been
found for medium-sized cities in Japan, with population
of 100 000 to 1 million people or even less (Fujibe,
1988). The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA, 2007)
has evaluated the climatic change over Japan using
the temperature observed at 17 synoptic stations that
‘have not been considered to be much influenced by
urbanization’, but ‘the analysis does not entirely eliminate
the influence of urbanization’, because some of the
stations used for analysis are in cities having population
over 100 000 people. To advance our knowledge of
climatic change, it will be interesting to quantify the
contribution of urban warming in long-term temperature
changes, not only in large cities but also at urbanized
sites only slightly.
By the end of the 1970s, the Automated Meteorolog-
ical Data Acquisition System (AMeDAS) was deployed
over the country. The network provides hourly tem-
perature data at about 800 stations. Some of them are
synoptic stations, but others are newly installed sta-
tions including those located in non-urban environments.
The deployment of the system coincides with the onset
of rapid warming on the global scale, with a trend
of ∼0.3 ° C/decade on the Northern Hemispheric land

Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society

1812
Figure 1. Time series of annual mean temperature (departure from the
average for 1906–1925) at Tokyo and Hachijo Island for 1906–2006.
average for 1979–2005 (IPCC, 2007). This recent warm-
ing trend has aroused public concern in Japan, especially
about increasing summer heat load in cities, promoting
studies of both global and urban climates.
The aim of the present study is to make a quantitative
evaluation of large-scale and urban contributions to the
warming trend in Japan. Although there are several tens
of synoptic stations that have a history of 100 years,
only a few of them are located at non-urban sites. The
AMeDAS data were therefore used for the study, by
restricting the target to recent few decades. The degree
of urbanization around each site was calculated from grid
data of population and land use, because city populations
often used as an index of urban size (Oke, 1973; Karl
et al., 1988; Fujibe, 1995) might not be representative
of the thermal environment of a site located outside the
central area of a city.
2. Data and procedure of analysis
2.1. Data of temperature and population
The AMeDAS network was completed early in the
beginning of 1979. The analysis was therefore performed
for 27 years from March 1979 to February 2006. Daily
mean, maximum and minimum temperatures (Tmean , Tmax
and Tmin ) were calculated from hourly temperatures
from 01 to 24 JST, allowing for two missing values.
Otherwise, they were left undefined. Stations at which
Figure 2. AMeDAS stations used for analysis. Mountain areas are shaded.
Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society
F. FUJIBE
percentage of days with undefined values exceeded 3%
of the total number of days for anyone of the 12 months
(for January, for example, days with undefined values
were more than 31 days × 27 years × 3% = 25) were
not used. To avoid the influence of discontinuity due
to site changes, stations which moved by a horizontal
distance of 1 km or more, or a height of 5 m or more,
were not used. The final number of stations used for
analysis was 561.
Data of population distribution was obtained from the
result of 2000 census on grids of 30 in latitude and 45
in longitude (about 1 km × 1 km), compiled by the Min-
istry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan
and distributed by Orkney, Inc. In addition, land-use
data on grids of 3 in latitude and 4.5 in longitude
(about 100 m × 100 m) were obtained from the ‘Dig-
ital National Land Information’ web site of the Min-
istry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Japan.
The latter provides land use in 11 categories. Among
these categories, those of ‘area for housing’, ‘main traf-
fic route zone’, and ‘other land use’, which include
various urban landscapes such as material yards, park-
ing lots, playing grounds, and parks, were regarded as
the urban surface. Land use data in 1976, also avail-
able on the website, were used in order to obtain
an index of changes in areal coverage of urban sur-
faces.
2.2. Parameters of urbanization
The population density around a station i was calculated
from a weighted average in the form


exp[−(rig /R)2 ]P (g)
g
DR (i) = (1)
πR 2
where P (g) is population on the grid g, rig is its distance
from the station i and R is a given parameter indicating
the size of the area for which population density is
calculated. There is no a priori way of determining the
best value of R. However, R = 1 km is comparable to
the resolution of the population data, so that there is some
concern about the accuracy of calculation. Moreover,
Int. J. Climatol. 29: 1811–1822 (2009)
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 DETECTION OF URBAN WARMING IN JAPAN 1813

Table I. Categories in population density D3 and the number of stations therein.

Category D3 (km−2 ) Whole area Northern Eastern Western Nansei Islands

1 <30 54 31 14 7 2
2 30–100 102 54 17 27 4
3 100–300 134 61 26 44 3
4 300–1000 156 45 52 56 3
5 1000–3000 73 13 33 26 1
6 ≥3000 42 7 20 15 0
Total 561 211 162 175 13

R = 1 km gives a small value of DR in the urban core,

where business activity is high but residents are relatively
few. On the other hand, R = 10 km is too large for
small cities and towns, although big cities may have
urban area spreading for several tens of kilometres. The
following analysis is therefore based on R = 3 km, so
that DR = D3 , which was calculated not only for stations
but also for all the 30 × 45 grids over the land by Figure 3. Percentage of the land area over Japan, and AMeDAS and
applying Equation (1). synoptic stations, in each category of D3 .
Oke (1973) found a linear relationship between noctur-
nal heat-island intensity and the logarithm of city popu-
lation. A similar relationship is found for Japanese cities
(Sakakibara and Matsui, 2005). On the other hand, Karl
et al. (1988) showed that the 0.45 power of population
gave highest correlation with temperature trends for cities
in the United States. In the present study, stations were
classified in a logarithmic scale of D3 , because log D3
is found to have a higher correlation with temperature
trends than the power of D3 , as described in detail in the
next section. Table I shows the definition of categories
and the number of stations therein.
Figure 2 shows the distribution of stations categorized
in D3 . Four regions were defined as indicated, based on
governmental and geographical divisions. More than half
of stations in the categories 1 and 2 are in northern Japan.
In eastern and western Japan, category 1 stations are Figure 4. Plot of log D3 and log D10 at each station. The grey dotted line
indicates the D3 = D10 line. The black dashed line gives the regression
relatively few, and are very scarce in regions near Tokyo obtained from Equation (2).
and Osaka. Figure 3 shows the percentage of AMeDAS
stations, and synoptic stations, in each category of D3 .
Although Japan is a highly populated country, nearly half between log D3 and log D10 . The regression line is based
of the land is in the category 1, while only one-third of on a least-squares condition
land is in categories 3–6. The average value of D3 over
the country is 315 km−2 , which is slightly smaller than

(Yi − AXi − B)2 → min (2)
the true population density of Japan (340 km−2 ) because
i
D3 includes some water surfaces when Equation (4) is
applied to grids near the coast. On the other hand, more
than 70% of the AMeDAS stations are in categories 3–6, where Xi and Yi correspond to log D3 and log D10 values
and about 20% of the stations are in categories 5–6. Thus at station i, respectively. We can see that D10 tends to
AMeDAS stations are located in more populated areas be smaller than D3 . This reflects the situation that many
than the average land area of Japan. The percentage of stations are in areas which are locally more populated
sites in high categories is still larger for synoptic stations, than the surroundings. The difference of D3 and D10 is
with more than half sites falling in categories 5–6. The more conspicuous for stations in northern Japan and the
average value of D3 over all the AMeDAS stations is Nansei Islands, implying the smaller size of populated
830 km−2 for AMeDAS, and that for synoptic stations is areas in these regions than eastern and western Japan.
1894 km−2 . Nevertheless, there is a high correlation of 0.880 between
For the sake of comparison, analyses for R = 1 km and log D3 and log D10 . A high correlation of 0.914 is found
R = 10 km were performed. Figure 4 shows the relation also for log D3 and log D1 .

Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society Int. J. Climatol. 29: 1811–1822 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
1814
In a similar way, areal coverage of urban surface was
calculated by

corresponding to local topography and land use, so that
exp[−(rig /R)2 ]u(g)A(g)
g limited (Pielke et al., 2002; Hawkins et al., 2004; Gallo,
UR (i) =
πR 2
where u(g) = 1 if the grid g is urban and u(g) = 0
otherwise, and A(g) is the area covered by the grid g.
Figure 5 shows the relation between log D3 and U3 1/7
relation. The 1/7 power for U3 derives from the fact that
the correlation between log D3 and U3 a is highest for
a = 0.135 (=1/7.4) with a value of 0.948. Again there is
a strong relationship between the two. It can be seen that
stations in northern Japan tend to have smaller values of
D3 for a given U3 , indicating that urban areas in northern
Japan are less populated than in other regions.
Figure 6 shows the ratio of U3 in 1976 and that in
1997, hereafter denoted by U3 = U3 (1997)/U3 (1976),
as a function of U3 in 1997. The fact that U3 > 1
at most stations indicates the extension of urban areas
during these 21 years. The values of U3 tend to be
higher at stations with smaller values of U3 , particularly
in northern Japan. This fact probably reflects the recent
rapid development of some small cities and towns, in
contrast to nearly saturated urbanization in large cities.
Figure 5. Plot of log D3 and U3 1/7
at each station.
Figure 6. Plot of U3 1/7 and U3 at each station.
Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society
F. FUJIBE
Some of recent studies based on detailed observation
have revealed microscale variations of urban temperature
representativeness of temperature at a single site may be
(3)
2005; Sakakibara and Owa, 2005). However, the target of
the present study is not the trend of individual stations,
but the average trend over stations with respect to the
degree of urbanization. It is expected that the influence
of microscale variations can be reduced by averaging
stations (Pielke et al., 2002).
2.3. Calculation of temperature trends
To remove temperature differences according to location,
departures from their climatic mean were used. The
climatic mean was defined for each calendar day as


2006
T (i, j ) = T (i, j, j ) ÷ N (4)
n=1979
where T is any one of Tmean , Tmax and Tmin , i is station, j
is day of the year, n is year and N is the number of days
in the summation except missing values. The value of
February 29 in a leap year was added to the summation
for February 28 and March 1 with a half-weight. Nine-
day running averaging was then applied three times in
order to filter out day-to-day irregularities. The departure
from the climatic mean was given by
T ∗ (i, j, n) = T (i, j, n) − T (i, j ) (5)
For 29 February of a leap year, T (i, j ) in Equation (5)
was replaced by the average for 28 February and 1 March.
The linear temperature trend for the 27 years was
calculated by fitting a linear function with the least-
squares method


{<T ∗ (i, n) > −[T  (i)n + T0 (i)]}2 → min (6)
n
where < T ∗ (i, n) > is the annual average, or the average
over a specified season, of any one of T ∗ mean , T ∗ max and
T ∗ min . The linear trend and the constant term are given
by T  (i) and T0 (i), respectively.
3. Relation between temperature trends and
population density
Figure 7 shows the relation between log D3 and T  mean ,
namely the linear trend of daily mean temperature, for
all the stations. There is large scatter among stations,
indicating the dominance of local factors’ characteristic to
each station. Nevertheless, there is a positive correlation
of 0.455 (T  mean = 0.071 log D3 + 0.262 ° C), which is
significant at the 1% level, between log D3 and T  mean .
For powers of D3 , the correlation between D3 a and
T  mean gradually decreases as a increases. The correlation
between the 0.45 power of D3 (Karl et al., 1988)
Int. J. Climatol. 29: 1811–1822 (2009)
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 DETECTION OF URBAN WARMING IN JAPAN 1815

and T  mean is 0.407 (T  mean = 0.0039D3 0.45 + 0.372 ° C),
and the D3 and T  mean correlation is 0.310 (T  mean =
2.18 × 10−5 D3 + 0.415 ° C). Figure 8 shows the time
series of T ∗ mean averaged for each category of D3 . The
pattern of year-to-year change is common to all the
categories, while upper categories evidently show higher
trends.
Figure 9 shows the values of T  mean , T  max and T  min
for each category and region except the Nansei Islands,
where stations are very few. Table II lists the trends for
the whole-area average. The confidence range was eval-
uated from the scatter of T  among stations by apply-
ing the t-distribution, on the assumption that departure
from the linear regression follows the normal distribu-
tion. The test of Bowman and Shenton (1975) based
Figure 7. Plot of log D3 and T  mean at each station.
on a parameter ‘(number of stations) × [skewness2 /6 +
(kurtosis-3)2 /24]’, which is asymptotically chi-square
distributed with two degrees of freedom, indicates that
the departure from the normal distribution is insignificant
for T  mean and T  max , although T  min tends to deviate from
the normality corresponding to positive kurtosis. Accord-
ing to Figure 9 and Table II, the value of T  mean for the
category 1 is 0.339 ° C/decade, while there is consider-
able regional difference, ranging from 0.31 ° C/decade in
northern Japan to 0.45 ° C/decade in western Japan. For
higher categories, T  mean increases in all the regions,
exceeding 0.5 ° C/decade for categories 5 and 6 in eastern
and western Japan. It is to be noted that the whole-
area averaged T  mean (Figure 9) shows a steeper slope
than that for each region. This fact reflects the situa-
tion that lower categories have more stations in north-
ern Japan, where trends are smaller than other regions
(Figure 7). In other words, the relationship between
log D3 and T  over the whole area is to some extent
affected by regional differences of temperature trends.
An attempt to evaluate the net urban contribution by
eliminating regional difference is presented in the next
section.
Values of T  max and T  min for the category 1 are nearly
equal to that of T  mean (0.39 ° C/decade and 0.35 ° C/decade
on the whole-area average, respectively). For higher
categories, T  min increases more rapidly than T  mean ,
while T  max is nearly constant for categories 4–6. As
a result, daily temperature range is almost unchanged for
lower categories, but has a decreasing trend at stations in
high categories.

Table II. T  mean , T  max and T  min for each category for the whole
area.

Category D3 (km−2 ) T  mean T  max T  min

1 <30 0.339 0.386 0.345

2 30–100 0.380 0.405 0.413
3 100–300 0.421 0.454 0.430
4 300–1000 0.458 0.493 0.460
5 1000–3000 0.501 0.497 0.518
Figure 8. Time series of T ∗ mean (departure from the average for 6 ≥3000 0.512 0.488 0.553
1979–1983) for each category in D3 , and its linear regression.

Figure 9. Dependence of T  mean , T  max and T  min on categories. Vertical bars indicate 95% confidence ranges, evaluated from the scatter among
stations.

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1816 F. FUJIBE

4. Evaluation of net urban anomaly in temperature between log D3 and δT  mean . Although scatter among sta-
trends tions is considerably large, there is a correlation of 0.444
(δT  mean = 0.058 log D3 − 0.909 ° C) which is significant
As an index of net urban trend, the departure of T  from
at the 1% level. The correlation between D3 0.45 and
its average for surrounding non-urban stations was used
δT  mean is 0.405 (δT  mean = 0.0032D3 0.45 − 0.001 ° C),
on the assumption that regional warming was locally
and that between D3 and δT  mean is 0.310 (δT  mean =
uniform. The averaging was based on spatial interpolation
based on the least-squares condition 1.84 × 10−5 D3 + 0.034 ° C). Figure 11 shows the values
of δT  mean averaged for each category and region except
    the Nansei Islands, as well as δT  max and δT  min discussed

rij 2
exp − later. Table III lists their values for the whole area. The
j
ro δT  mean value for the category 3 is 0.046 ° C/decade, and
that for the category 6 is 0.121 ° C/decade, with signifi-
{T  (j ) − [a(i)xij + b(i)yij + T0 (i)]}2 → min (7)
cance of the 5% level. Figure 11 also shows the result
of analysis for northern Japan based only on category 1
where xij and yij are eastward and northward distances
stations as reference. There is a positive δT  mean value of
from the target station i to the reference non-urban station
0.037 ° C/decade for the category 2 stations. These facts
j , rij2 = xij2 + yij2 , and r0 is a given parameter controlling
suggest the presence of urban effects not only at large
the spatial scale of interpolation. The value of r0 should
cities but also at small towns with population density of
not be too large to retain regional difference in T  , but not
100 km−2 , or even less.
too small to achieve spatial representativeness. Moreover,
As seen from Figure 11(b) and (c), δT  max and δT  min
the reference stations should be selected on a condition
for categories 3 and 4 are almost equal to each other.
that is not too strict to have sufficient spatial coverage, but
For higher categories, δT  min is substantially larger than
not too loose to be free from urban effects. Unfortunately,
δT  max . In other words, δT  min increases monotonically
stations in the category 1 are too sparse except in
with population density (except for eastern Japan), while
northern Japan (Figure 2, Table I), although category 2
δT  max is largest at around D3 = 1000 km−2 . This sit-
stations may receive some urban effects in comparison
uation means a negative anomaly in the trend of daily
to category 1 stations. The analysis was therefore based
temperature range at large cities.
on stations in category 1 and 2 as reference, allowing for
Figure 12 shows the diurnal cycle of δT  calculated
some possibility of urban bias, with r0 = 300 km. For
from hourly temperature, in the same way as Equa-
northern Japan, analysis limited to category 1 stations
tions (4)–(6). For categories 5 and 6, δT  has a distinct
was performed as well, as a more strict condition for the
absence of urban bias. For comparison, analysis based on
r0 = 150 km and r0 = 600 km was performed as well.
The solution to Equation (7) can be written in a linear
combination of T  (j ) in the form


T0 (i) = sij T  (j ) (8)
j

where sij is a function of xij and yij (see Appendix for

details) satisfying

sij = 1 (9)
j

If reference stations are in a limited sector of the target

station i, then Equation (8) involves extrapolation that
includes some large positive and negative values of sij
Figure 10. Same as Figure 7, but for δT  mean .
with poor accuracy. In such a case, the squared sum


Si = sij 2 (10) Table III. δT  mean , δT  max and δT  min for each category for the
j
whole area.

is considerably large. Thus Si can be a measure of accu- Category D3 (km−2 ) δT  mean δT  max δT  min
racy of the interpolation. In our analysis, T0  (i) was left
3 100–300 0.046∗∗ 0.033∗∗ 0.035∗
unavailable if Si ≥ 1. Also, T0  (i) was left undefined 4 300–1000 0.074∗∗ 0.059∗∗ 0.063∗∗
unless there were at least five reference stations in a range 5 1000–3000 0.110∗∗ 0.044∗∗ 0.119∗∗
rij ≤ 3 r0 , in order to avoid interpolation from too remote 6 ≥3000 0.121∗∗ 0.034∗ 0.152∗∗
stations.
The urban contribution in T  (i) was defined by ∗ Significant at the 5% level.
δT  (i) = T  (i) − T0  (i). Figure 10 shows the relation ∗∗ Significant at the 1% level.

Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society Int. J. Climatol. 29: 1811–1822 (2009)
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 DETECTION OF URBAN WARMING IN JAPAN 1817

Figure 11. Same as Figure 9, but for δT  mean , δT  max and δT  min based on category 1 and 2 stations as reference. The result of analysis for
northern Japan with only category 1 stations as reference is shown also.

Figure 12. Time-of-the-day dependence of δT  for each category and region.

diurnal variation with a minimum around noon and a

 
broad maximum at night. For categories 3 and 4, the
day–night contrast in δT  is much smaller, with weak exp[−(r/r0 )2 ]w(x, y)dxdy
maxima in the morning and early evening. Figure 13 A=   (11)
shows the diurnal cycle of δT  for the four seasons. The exp[−(r/r0 )2 ]dxdy
diurnal variation pattern is common to all seasons with
only a slight difference in peak time. where x and y are eastward and northward coordinates
Finally, Figure 14 shows the relation between log D3 centred on each station, w(x, y) = 1 if point (x, y)
and δT  mean for coastal and inland stations, defined based is land and w(x, y) = 0 otherwise, r 2 = x 2 + y 2 , and
on land coverage r0 = 25 km. A coastal station is defined by A < 0.7, and

Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society Int. J. Climatol. 29: 1811–1822 (2009)
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1818 F. FUJIBE

Figure 13. Same as Figure 12 but for each category and season.

Figure 14. Same as Figure 11(a), but for coastal and inland stations.

an inland station by A ≥ 0.95. The numbers of coastal

and inland stations are 168 and 104, respectively. As
seen from Figure 14, inland sites show slightly larger
values of δT  mean than coastal sites, but the difference is
insignificant. In other words, urban warming in the recent
few decades is found both at coastal and inland stations.
5. Comparative analyses for different urbanization
indices
As an alternative index of urbanization, an analysis based
on the areal coverage of urban surface was performed. A
categorization in U3 was made as shown in Table IV, so
Figure 15. Plot of U3 1/7 and δT  mean for each station.
that each category may have nearly as many stations as
that based on D3 . Figure 15 shows the relation between
U3 1/7 and δT  mean , which was obtained in the same
way as described in previous sections, except for the
definition of categories. There is a correlation of 0.409
(δT  mean = 0.314U3 1/7 − 0.187 ° C), which is near the
value obtained from the analysis using D3 . Figure 16(a)
shows the dependence of δT  mean on categories in U3 .
There is a positive signal of about 0.1 ° C/decade for

Table IV. Categories in U3 and the number of stations therein.

Category U3 Whole area Northern Eastern Western Nansei Islands

1 <0.02 63 25 17 19 2
2 0.02–0.05 112 54 15 38 5
3 0.05–0.1 101 46 23 30 2
4 0.1–0.25 168 60 56 48 4
5 0.25–0.5 72 16 30 26 0
6 ≥0.5 45 10 21 14 0
Total 561 211 162 175 13

Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society Int. J. Climatol. 29: 1811–1822 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
 DETECTION OF URBAN WARMING IN JAPAN 1819

Figure 16. Same as Figure 11(a), but for categories defined from U3 .

categories 5–6, and 0.02–0.03 ° C/decade for the category

3. Thus the overall feature of the relationship between
U3 and δT  mean is quite similar to that between D3
and δT  mean . Figure 16(b) is the result obtained from
land use data in 1976, instead of those in 1997. Again
there are positive δT  mean values for categories 3–6.
The correlation between U3 1/7 (1976) and δT  mean is
0.392 (δT  mean = 0.282U3 1/7 − 0.153 ° C), which is only
slightly smaller than that between U3 1/7 (1997) and
δT  mean (Figure 15).
Figure 17 shows the relation between δT  mean and Figure 18. Dependence of δT  mean on categories in U3 , for stations
U3 , namely the change in land use. There is no in specified ranges of U3 .
correlation between the two, unlike the case of U3 and
δT  mean . Figure 18 shows the dependence of δT  mean
on U3 for fixed ranges of U3 (U3 = 0.05–0.1 and population density D and the radius r0 for averaging
0.1–0.25). The result confirms that δT  mean has no the trends at non-urban stations. Figure 19 shows the
relationship with U3 . In other words, the rate of dependence of δT  mean on categories corresponding to
anomalous warming at cities is related to the spatial each option. The case of ‘All site changes’ allows for
coverage of urban surfaces itself, and not to the rate of its all the available stations without any restriction on site
change, as far as the recent few decades are concerned. changes, and the ‘No site changes’ case is based on the
A series of supplementary calculation was performed strict condition of no site change. The numbers of stations
in order to find the sensitivity of δT  on some options satisfying these conditions are 708 and 486, respectively.
in the analysis, such as conditions for selecting stations The categories for D1 and D10 were defined as shown in
related to site changes, the radius R for calculating Table V, so that each of them may have nearly as many
stations as that based on D3 . An increase of δT  mean
towards higher categories is common to all the cases,
without significant difference from one another. Thus the
main features of the result are insensitive to these options.

Table V. Categories in D1 and D10 and the number of stations

(over the whole area) therein.

Category D1 (km−2 ) D10 (km−2 )

1 <60 49 <12 51
2 60–200 76 12–40 106
3 200–600 166 40–120 128
4 600–2000 157 120–400 150
5 2000–6000 95 400–1200 85
6 ≥6000 18 ≥1200 41
Total 561 Total 561
Figure 17. Plot of U3 and δT  mean for each station.

Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society Int. J. Climatol. 29: 1811–1822 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
1820
Figure 19. Dependence of δT  mean on categories, obtained from analysis with different options.
6. Concluding remarks
The result of this study has two meanings. On the one
hand, it indicates the presence of warming trend over
0.3 ° C/decade in Japan, even at non-urban stations. This
fact confirms that recent rapid warming at Japanese cities
is largely attributable to background temperature rise on
the large scale, rather than the development of urban heat
islands.
However, the analysis has also revealed the presence of
significant urban anomaly. The anomalous trend for the
category 6, with population density over 3000 km−2 or
urban surface coverage over 50%, is about 0.1 ° C/decade.
Even for only slightly urbanized sites with population
density of ≈100 km−2 or urban surface coverage of
≈0.05, there is anomalous trend of 0.03–0.05 ° C/decade,
namely 0.3–0.5 ° C/century. This value may be small in
comparison to the background warming trend in the last
few decades, but they can have substantial magnitude
when compared with the centennial global trend, which
is estimated to be 0.74 ° C/century for 1906–2005 (IPCC,
2007). It therefore requires careful analysis to avoid urban
influences in evaluating long-term temperature changes.
The results obtained in this study do not conflict
with the finding of insignificant urban signals in the
United States (e.g. Peterson, 2003) or on the global scale
(Parker, 2006). The crucial point is that the intensity
of urban warming can be different according to regions
and countries, depending on the rate of development and
urban structure. In comparison with the United States,
where cities have much open space and observatories
tend to be located in parks (Peterson, 2003), Japanese
Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society
F. FUJIBE
cities are characterized by densely built-up area and rapid
development, with most observation sites in small fields
surrounded by roads and buildings. It is therefore no
wonder that temperature data in Japan receive significant
urban bias. This situation may be common to some
rapidly industrialized countries, such as China (Ren et al.,
2007; Hua et al., 2007).
The strong day–night contrast in δT  at densely popu-
lated stations (Figures 12 and 13) agrees with the general
understanding that urban warming is more conspicuous
in the nighttime than in the daytime. The weak day–night
difference in δT  at category 3 and 4 stations, with double
peaks in the morning and evening, may be different from
the typical cycle of the urban heat island, but tempera-
ture changes of similar diurnal variation pattern have been
found to prevail over the United States, resulting at least
partially from urbanization influences (Knappenberger
et al., 1996; Schwartzman et al., 1998). A similar time
dependence has been found also for weekday–weekend
temperature anomaly at relatively small cities in Japan
(Fujibe, 1988), apparently corresponding to high anthro-
pogenic heat release in a relatively stable boundary layer
in the morning and evening. In these respects, our anal-
ysis appears to have captured the main features of recent
urban warming in Japan. There is no significant differ-
ence between coastal and inland stations, although some
of previous studies have shown the dependence of urban
temperature on topography, with a tendency of larger
anomaly in inland than coastal cities (Fujibe, 1995, 1997).
On the other hand, detailed physical explanation to the
anomalous warming at urban sites requires further stud-
ies. It is believed that the urban heat island is caused
Int. J. Climatol. 29: 1811–1822 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
 DETECTION OF URBAN WARMING IN JAPAN 1821

by various factors including anthropogenic heat release, Appendix: Solution to Equation (7)
reduced evapotranspiration at surface and complicated
The solution to the least-squares problem in Equation (7)
changes in radiation and heat balance due to build-
is given, after some manipulation, as
ings (Kusaka and Kimura, 2004; Kondo et al., 2005),
whereas geographical factors such as population and

T0 (i) = sij T  (j ) (A1)
land use are only indirectly related to them. A physi-
j  =i
cally based approach to the processes of urban warm-
ing, including modelling studies of heat budget in the where
urban canopy layer, will be needed to make clear the  
causal link between geographical and physical factors. (AE − BF )xij + (BD − AF )yij
w(rij )
A related problem in our result is the lack of correlation +(F 2 − DE)
sij =
between temperature trends and the rate of changes in the A2 E + B 2 D − 2ABF
areal coverage of urban surfaces. This fact may imply +C(F 2 − DE)
that urban warming is more closely related to internal (A2)
changes, such as increase in business activity and build- with
ing height, rather than spatial coverage of urban surfaces.

In fact, the population of Tokyo has almost unchanged or A= xij w(rij ) (A3)
j  =i
even decreased since the 1960s (from 8.9 million in 1965


to 8.5 million in 2005), in which most of its domain had B= yij w(rij ) (A4)
already been covered by urban surfaces, but still there j  =i
have been substantial increase in cars and tall buildings

in the central business area accompanied by an intensify- C= w(rij ) (A5)
ing heat island (Figure 1; Kawamura, 1985). For longer j  =i
time span tracing back to the early 20th century, how-

D= xij 2 w(rij ) (A6)
ever, urban landscapes have so changed that there may
j  =i
be closer relationship between changes in geographical

parameters and urban temperature. E= yij 2 w(rij ) (A7)
At present, there are only a few non-urban stations i =i
where digitalized data are available for a 100 years, so

that it remains as a subject of future studies to exam- F = xij yij w(rij ) (A8)
j  =i
ine the temperature trend in Japan on a centennial time
scale. A tentative analysis of the Hadley Center’s 5 × and    
5° data (HadCRUT3v; http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/ rij 2
temperature/) has yielded a trend as large as 1.8 ° C/ w(rij ) = exp − (A9)
r0
century for 1906–2006 for the cell including cen-
tral Honshu (35–40 N, 135–140 E). A similar anal- It is easily shown that
ysis for NASA’s 250-km-resolution land temperature


data (SBBX.Tsurf 250; http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/) sij = 1 (A10)
results in a trend of 1.3 ° C/century for the grid in cen- j  =i
tral Honshu (36 N 138 E) for the same period. These
are substantially larger trends at some non-urban sites
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