Journal article
Threefold land-use forcing intensifies twofold warming of urban Europe
- Abstract:
- Europe is warming much faster than the global average, yet the relative contributions of individual anthropogenic drivers to its urban warming remain uncertain. Using CMIP5 single-forcing simulations and observations from HadCRUT5 dataset, we determine the influence of greenhouse gases (GHGs), aerosols from anthropogenic sources (Aaer), together with change in land-use (LU) forcing on urban Europe’s rising surface air temperature (SAT) since 1850. The local Europe Amplification Factor (EAF), the ratio of regional to global SAT trends, reveals that LU forcing has intensified nearly threefold relative to the global mean since the industrial era, driving urban European warming almost twice the global rate. LU forcing exhibits the strongest amplification (EAF ≈ 3.0) compared with GHG forcing (EAF ≈ 2.0), highlighting the critical role of surface modifications in accelerating regional urban warming. Future projections under RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 indicate persistent EAF values exceeding 2.0 over densely populated regions, underscoring the need for integrated emission- and land-management strategies to mitigate urban Europe’s amplified warming.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 20.1MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1029/2026JD046541
Authors
+ Natural Environment Research Council
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/02b5d8509
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Journal:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres More from this journal
- Volume:
- 131
- Issue:
- 20
- Article number:
- e2026JD046541
- Publication date:
- 2026-10-18
- Acceptance date:
- 2026-10-06
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2169-8996
- ISSN:
-
2169-897X
- Language:
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English
- Pubs id:
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2466234
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2466234
- Deposit date:
-
2026-10-10
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Swain et al
- Copyright date:
- 2026
- Rights statement:
- © 2026 The Author(s). Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Geophysical Union. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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