Associations between varying magnitudes of the urban heat island and the synoptic climatology in Melbourne, Australia

Abstract

This paper examines the characteristics of the urban heat island (UHI) in a large Australian city (Melbourne) using local area weather data and the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalyses data of mean sea level pressure (MSLP). Conventional methods to determine the UHI from climatological data often involve comparing minimum temperature data between urban and rural environments. The findings presented in this paper show that comparing simultaneous measurements of temperature at one urban and three nearby airport sites at 0600 (Australian eastern standard time (EST) provided a better estimate of the UHI magnitude. Analyses of these data between 1973-1991 were groupe..