2008 Fall Meeting: San Francisco, CA - 15-19 December 2008

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GC03:	Urban Impact on the Weather, Climate, and Hydrology: Field Experiments, Modeling, Remote Sensing, and Societal Implications
Sponsor:	Global Environmental Change
CoSponsor:	Atmospheric Sciences Hydrology
Convener:	Menglin S. Jin San Jose State University Sa Jose, CA, USA jin@met.sjsu.edu Marshall J. Shepherd University of Georgia USA marshgeo@uga.edu
	0305 1637 1640 1847 3354 .
Description:	Urbanization is a well-known manifestation of how human activities affect the natural climate system. Remote sensing measurements (in particular, urban surface temperature, albedo, emissivity, vegetation, precipitation, soil moisture, and others) have been used to understand the urban climate system. Hydrometeorological and climate modeling has vastly improved by implementing such remotely sensed data to characterize the heterogeneity of urban and non-urban landscapes. Field experiments are still critical for evaluating both model output and remotely sensed data. The study of urban-climate interactions is very effective when researchers use combined approaches of field experiments, modeling, and remote sensing. In 2003, an AGU union session was organized to stimulate knowledge exchange between scientists and stakeholders studying urban-weather-climate interactions from the aforementioned perspectives (Jin and Shepherd 2005; Shepherd and Jin 2004). This session will continue that dialogue and assess recent advances. This session also seeks to engage scientists and stakeholders that are concerned about the social, economic, and political implications of weather, climate, and hydrological variability caused by the urban environment. The 2008 AGU meeting is an appropriate time for the remote sensing, modeling, boundary layer, and societal impacts communities to gather on the issues below. Specifically, we welcome all presentations that address the following questions: 1. What have we learned about the urban heat island (UHI) and associated effects from observation and modeling perspectives? 2. How do anthropogenic aerosols affect surface radiative and cloud-rainfall microphysical processes? 3. What synergistic or individual role does urban land cover, morphology, and pollution play in convective processes? 4. How can field experiment and remotely sensed data improve hydrometeorological and climate modeling of the urban environment? 5. What is the current status of scaling urban modeling into regional and global climate model frameworks? 6. Beyond UHIs and cloud-rainfall issues, what other interesting climate variables are affected by urban environments (e.g. water cycle, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle)? 7. What are the driving socioeconomic and policy concerns related to urban climate change? 8. What are effective practices for bridging the research and policy communities on these issues?

Union Sessions by Theme

There are no extra requirements to submit to these sessions.

1. Carbon in the Earth System

U01: Origin of Late Holocene (Pre-Industrial) Increases in Atmospheric CO₂ and CH₄

U04: Understanding of the Global Carbon Cycle Using Models and Observations

U15: Global Climate Change and Gas Hydrate Reservoir Degassing: Assessing the Scientific Evidence

U22: Geologic Carbon Sequestration: The Vital Links Between Risk Assessment, Monitoring and Mitigation Design

2. Earth's Polar Regions

U02: The International Polar Year

U23: Observing, Understanding, Predicting and Responding to Pan-Arctic Ice Retreat Problems

3. Climate & the Environment

U06: Geoengineering to Counteract Global Warming?

U10: Tropical Cyclone—Climate Interactions Past, Present, and Future

U11: Comparative Climate Studies of Earth, Venus and Mars

U12: Consequences of Peak Oil for Climate Change

U14: Environmental Consequences of the Changing Global Food System

U24: Perspectives on the Past and Future of Paleoceanography and Paleclimatology

4. Earth's Dynamic Interior

U09: Different Views on One Asthenosphere

U18: Interaction and Co-evolution of Earth Reservoirs: Coupling of Mantle, Tectonic, Atmospheric, and Hydrospheric Dynamics in the Evolution of Earth

U20: Fluids at Convergent Margins: Synthesis of Observations, Experiments and Models

U21: Geologic, Seismologic, and Geodynamic Constraints on the 4–D Evolution of North America: Where are we now and Where are we going?

5. New Frontiers

U03: MESSENGER at Mercury: The Second Flyby

U05: Episodic Tremor and Slip: Insights into a Newly Discovered Process

U08: The Library — Data Center Alliance in Earth and Space Sciences

U13: The Phoenix Mission

U16: The Van Allen Radiation Belts and Their Impact on Modern Space Science

6. Hazards and Public Risk

U07: Role of Science in Water, Biologic, and Geologic Hazards Security

U17: Decision Support Needs and Tools for Global Change: Bridging the Gap Between Physical and Societal Models

U19: The Great 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake: A Multi-disciplinary View

U25: Integrated Geohazards Along Continental Margins and Plate Boundary Zones