Impacto del uso del suelo en el clima de la Ciudad de México

Résumé 0

"It is well established that anthropogenic land-use changes directly affect the atmospheric boundary layer at themesoscale dimensions. Located in the high lands of Central Mexico, the basin of Mexico (7 500 km2) has undergone awidespread conversion of natural vegetation to urban and agricultural land by deforestation. While the urban extension ofthe capital city occupied 6 of the basin in 1960, at the end of the twentieth century the urban sprawl had increasedconsiderably to 20 of the total area. This phenomenal growth has impacted on the thermal climate of substantial portionsof the basin. In this paper using annual temperature and precipitation data for a 25 year period, an attempt is made toidentify interdecadal climate changes. Results show that large areas of the basin have changed toward a warmer drierclimate. While afternoon temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.07° C/yr in the suburbs of the city the correspondingarea averaged value for the rural sites is somewhat less: 0.06° C/yr. The afternoon temperature increase for the totalnumber of stations used was 0.06° C/yr. The area-averaged minimum temperature increase in suburban stations (3) was0.15° C/yr while that corresponding to surrounding rural sites was 0.08° C/yr for period 1961-1985.This last result illustrates the relevant role the heat island phenomenon has had in changing the thermal climate ascompared with that observed in the rural environment."