Urban Impact on the Low Atmosphere Processes

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Meteorology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 2667

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Applied Physics, Universidad de Valladolid, 47011 Valladolid, Spain
Interests: climate change; extreme events; NDVI; synoptic patterns; trends

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Buildings and other urban structures, together with urban activities, may have a noticeable impact on meteorological variables. Urban expansion has increased in recent years and the contrast between recorded variables inside the cities and their values in rural surroundings is research objective in order for urban development managers to take correction action. Although the urban heat island is a known effect, urban impact is also observed in other meteorological variables, such as wind speed or relative humidity. This Special Issue has several objectives. The first one is to establish the contrast between meteorological variables measured or modelled in the city and outside it. The second objective is to plan strategies to counteract negative effects of urban meteorological islands. Additionally, meteorological processes, which are observed in cities, such as air recirculation around them or atmospheric stability, could be included in this Special Issue. Moreover, air trajectory analyses where the origin or end is a city may be introduced to investigate transport processes from a city or on a city. Source data may be varied, such as surface stations, modelled gridded data or satellite information. New methods for managing  this information are encouraged to improve insights about urban islands. Finally, the impact on people’s health of cities’ meteorology and the relationship between urban meteorology islands and urban pollution islands are further subjects covered by this Special Issue.

Dr. Isidro A. Pérez
Dr. María Ángeles García Pérez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • urban heat island
  • urban sustainability
  • urban meteorology
  • urban parks
  • urban climate
  • microclimate
  • urban planning

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

13 pages, 2499 KiB  
Article
Decreased Mobility During the COVID-19 Pandemic Period Considerably Improved Air Quality in Debrecen City, Hungary
by Semonti Mukherjee, István Lázár, Szilárd Szabó, Béla Tóthmérész, Vanda Éva Abriha-Molnár, Herta Czédli and Edina Simon
Atmosphere 2025, 16(2), 197; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos16020197 - 10 Feb 2025
Viewed by 610
Abstract
The effect of decreased mobility on air quality due to the COVID-19 period was analysed from 2018 to 2022 in Debrecen city, Hungary. The PM10 concentrations were analysed at three sampling sites. We compared PM10 concentrations from 2018 to 2022 during [...] Read more.
The effect of decreased mobility on air quality due to the COVID-19 period was analysed from 2018 to 2022 in Debrecen city, Hungary. The PM10 concentrations were analysed at three sampling sites. We compared PM10 concentrations from 2018 to 2022 during three periods: pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic. We also studied the effect of lockdowns on the PM10 concentrations during the pandemic period. Over the 2018–2022 period, the concentration of PM10 decreased across all sites, suggesting improved air quality. Significant differences were found in PM10 levels among the pre-pandemic (before February of 2020), pandemic (from March of 2020 to February 2022), and post-pandemic period (after March of 2022) in the case of all stations. Significant differences were also found among years and stations during the lockdown periods. Drastically significant decreases were found only in January of 2021 in the case of all stations. Our results also demonstrated that the reduction in emissions took place simultaneously, as exceptional weather conditions such as wind direction and wind speed were observed in the year 2020, which have been highlighted by an unusually warm pre-lockdown February and springtime drought. PM10 levels indicated heterogeneous patterns characterized by variations including decreases, slight increases, or stability, contingent upon the specific sampling sites under consideration. These findings emphasize the complex dynamics of air pollutants and stress the necessity for ongoing monitoring and targeted interventions to alleviate detrimental effects on air quality and public health. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Impact on the Low Atmosphere Processes)
Show Figures

Graphical abstract

18 pages, 11390 KiB  
Article
Quantifying the Carbon Reduction Potential of Urban Parks Under Extreme Heat Events Using Interpretable Machine Learning: A Case Study of Jinan, China
by Lemin Yu, Wenru Li, Changhui Zheng and Xiaowen Lin
Atmosphere 2025, 16(1), 79; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos16010079 - 14 Jan 2025
Viewed by 793
Abstract
Greenhouse gas emissions are primary drivers of climate change, and the intensification of extreme heat and urban heat island effects poses serious threats to urban ecosystems, public health, and energy consumption. This study systematically evaluated the carbon reduction potential of 369 urban parks [...] Read more.
Greenhouse gas emissions are primary drivers of climate change, and the intensification of extreme heat and urban heat island effects poses serious threats to urban ecosystems, public health, and energy consumption. This study systematically evaluated the carbon reduction potential of 369 urban parks in Jinan during extreme heat events using land surface temperature (LST) retrieval, combined with CatBoost + SHAP machine learning methods. Results indicate that the LST in Jinan ranged from 1.77 °C to 59.44 °C, and 278 parks exhibited significant cooling effects, collectively saving 2943 tons of CO2 per day—offsetting 11.28% of the city’s fossil fuel emissions. Small parks, such as community parks, demonstrated higher carbon-saving efficiency (CSE), while large ecological parks showed greater carbon-saving intensity (CSI). CSE was strongly correlated with vegetation coverage and surrounding population density, with efficiency increasing when the vegetation index was within 0.3–0.7 and population density ranged 0–5000 or 15,000–22,500 people. CSI was influenced by evapotranspiration and park geometric form, increasing significantly when the park area exceeded 250 hectares or evapotranspiration ranged 2.5–6.0. However, elevation and albedo negatively impacted both metrics, with the lowest CSI observed when elevation exceeded 150 m or albedo surpassed 18%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Impact on the Low Atmosphere Processes)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop