The climate impacts of future urbanization in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in China were simulated with the Dynamics of Land Systems (DLS) model and the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in this study. The land use and land cover data in 2000 and 2020 were simulated with the DLS model based on the regional development planning. Then the spatial and temporal changes of surface air temperature, ground heat flux, and regional precipitation in 2020 were quantified and analyzed through comparing simulation results by WRF. Results show that the built-up land will become the dominant land use type in the PRD in 2020. Besides, the near-surface air temperature shows an increasing trend on the whole region in both summer and winter, but with some seasonal variation. The urban temperature rise is more apparent in summer than it is in winter. In addition, there is some difference between the spatial pattern of precipitation in summer and winter in 2020; the spatial variation of precipitation is a bit greater in summer than it is in winter. Results can provide significant reference for the land use management to alleviate the climate change. 1. Introduction Urbanization can lead to massive loss of cultivated land, forestry area, and grassland and pose a threat to national food security and ecological safety [1]. More importantly, it can change the land surface properties and consequently influence the regional climate [2, 3]. The urban areas have a higher heat-storage capacity, Bowen ratio, and surface roughness in comparison to the rural areas [4]. These differences lead to the change of dynamic processes in the atmospheric boundary layer and the surface energy budget, which ultimately affect the regional climate in and around the urban areas [5]. More attention should be paid to the climate effect of urbanization since more than half of the world’s population resides in the urban areas, which is expected to continue to increase [6–8]. The research on the climate impacts of urbanization can help to predict and solve the problems caused by climate change more scientifically and efficiently. For example, Seto and Shepherd [9] indicated that the land use and land cover changes in the urban area exerted great impacts on the climate. Stone Jr. [10] suggested that the climate change could be more efficiently mitigated through regulating the land use change than only controlling the greenhouse gas emission. Besides, Stone et al. [11] recommended that the municipal and state governments should broaden climate action plans to include the urban-scale heat
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