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eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

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at 04:00 is (1.29 ± 0.33) K, and at 12:00 it is (0.75 ± 0.29) K. The conversion <strong>of</strong> rural land<br />

cover to urban land cover has caused an increase in the spatially averaged near surface<br />

potential temperature across the domain, both during daytime and night time. During night<br />

time 82% <strong>of</strong> the grid cells show a change greater than 1 K with respect to the rural domain,<br />

compared with 20% during daytime. These increases can be compared to results for other<br />

numerical studies, for example Lee et al. (2008) found an increase <strong>of</strong> 1.5 K for the rapid<br />

urbanisation over 40 years <strong>of</strong> the Daegu region in Korea, Wang et al. (2007) also found<br />

increases for the 2-d averaged temperature <strong>of</strong> 1.5 K during night time and 0.8 K during<br />

daytime due to urbanisation in the Pearl Delta region on China, and Lamptey et al. (2005)<br />

found an increase <strong>of</strong> more than 1 K over urban sites due to urbanisation in the North-<br />

Eastern US.<br />

6.2.2 Diurnal temperature range (DTR)<br />

Diurnal temperature range is a meteorological indicator which can be associated with<br />

climate change and urbanisation (Easterling et al. 1997; Kalnay et al. 2003). Gallo et al.<br />

(1996) found that changes in the predominant land use or land cover conditions could<br />

significantly affect the climatological DTR.<br />

The DTR was calculated for each grid cell (i,j) in the domain by subtracting the minimum<br />

diurnal temperature (Tmin_diurnal) from the maximum diurnal temperature (Tmax_diurnal), as<br />

described in Equation 6.2.<br />

DTR(i,j) = Tmax_diurnal (i,j) - Tmin_diurnal(i,j)<br />

(Equation 6.2)<br />

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