Relationship between soil sealing and local to regional climate in Germany

Abstract

Soil sealing affects local climate via changes in the energy and radiation budget and represents a major causation for urban-rural temperature differences. In the present study, we investigate to what extent and at what spatial scales soil sealing accounts for significant spatial differences in mean near-surface climate characteristics as given by the relatively dense meteorological network in Germany. The study is based on soil sealing data from satellites and five near-surface meteorological parameters related to temperature and atmospheric humidity. We employ different spatial aggregation levels and classification methods of the soil sealing data. All analyzed meteorological variables are a clear function of soil sealing. The link is barely sensitive to the applied classification approach but differs depending on the level of spatial aggregation of the soil sealing data. At an aggregation level of 1–5 km, the local to regional climate exhibits an almost monotonous and statistically significant tendency towards warmer and dryer conditions when soil sealing increases from class to class. At the original 20 m resolution of the soil sealing data, the local picture is less coherent but still reveals statistically significant differences, especially for the classes with maximum sealing. The spatial distribution of meteorological stations assigned to the soil sealing classes shows that, at higher aggregation levels, soil sealing is an unambiguous indicator for urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas in Germany. At the local scale, stations assigned to the highest soil sealing class are more widespread and independent of urban regions. Thus, local soil sealing around rural meteorological stations can lead to local climatic conditions that are almost as warm and dry as on average in large metropolitan areas.

Keywords

• local climate change
• soil sealing
• station data
• satellite data
• germany