Spatio-temporal correlation between human activity intensity and land surface temperature on the north slope of Tianshan Mountains

Abstract

Research on the spatio-temporal correlation between the intensity of human activities and the temperature of earth surfaces is of great significance in many aspects, including fully understanding the causes and mechanisms of climate change, actively adapting to climate change, pursuing rational development, and protecting the ecological environment. Taking the north slope of Tianshan Mountains, located in the arid area of northwestern China and extremely sensitive to climate change, as the research area, this study retrieves the surface temperature of the mountain based on MODIS data, while characterizing the intensity of human activities thereby data on the night light, population distribution and land use. The evolution characteristics of human activity intensity and surface temperature in the study area from 2000 to 2018 were analyzed, and the spatio-temporal correlation between them was further explored. It is found that: (1) The average human activity intensity (0.11) in the research area has kept relatively low since this century, and the overall trend has been slowly rising in a stepwise manner (0.0024•a -1 ); in addition, the increase in human activity intensity has lagged behind that in construction land and population by 1-2 years. (2) The annual average surface temperature in the area is 7.18 ℃ with a pronounced growth. The rate of change (0.02 ℃•a -1 ) is about 2.33 times that of the world. The striking boost in spring (0.068 ℃•a -1 ) contributes the most to the overall warming trend. Spatially, the surface temperature is low in the south and high in the north, due to the prominent influence of the underlying surface characteristics, such as elevation and vegetation coverage. (3) The intensity of human activity and the surface temperature are remarkably positively correlated in the human activity areas there, showing a strong distribution in the east section and a weak one in the west section. The expression of its spatial differentiation and correlation is comprehensively affected by such factors as scopes of human activities, manifestations, and

Spatiotemporal variation of land surface temperature and its driving factors in Xinjiang, China

“…To a certain extent, it can also reflect the influence of human activities on LST distribution. In natural ecology, land cover can better reflect the influence of vegetation on LST (Chen et al, 2022a). Therefore, the introduction of the source-sink theory to explore the heat source and heat sink effects of different LULC types in the surface thermal environment can provide a reference for alleviating urban heat islands, protecting and planning ecosystems, and restoring vegetation and water bodies to promote sustainable development in arid areas.…”

“…Currently, LST research is widely focused on the urban heat island effect (Ren et al, 2021;Yang et al, 2021;Sfîcă et al, 2023), crop sowing date predictions for agriculture (Zeng et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2015), drought monitoring (Khan et al, 2018;Hu et al, 2020), soil freeze-thaw analysis (Yue et al, 2021), and human activity intensity research (Portela et al, 2020;Chen et al, 2022a). Although LST is a general term for soil temperature on the surface and at different depths below the ground, there are obvious spatial differences in topography, climatic environment, and underlying surface attributes, which can cause the diversity of LST distribution patterns and the regionality of formation mechanisms (Wu et al, 2022).…”

“…Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in Northwest China is a vast territory that includes oasis, alpine, and dry-hot desert areas (Chen et al, 2022a). It is also an important area of oasis distribution in the arid areas of the world (Pan et al, 2021).…”

Analysis of spatial and temporal evolution and drivers of cropland in the economic zone of the northern slope of Tianshan mountain

“…Geographically, the region can be classified into five zones, namely the mid-alpine zone, front mountain zone, oasis zone, northern desert zone, and oasis-desert transition zone, as one moves from south to north (Yin et al 2020). There is a noticeable interactive relationship between vegetation cover types and climate change in this area (Chen et al 2022a). Since the beginning of the 21st century, rapid development in oasis agriculture has transformed the economic zone on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountain into a significant modern agricultural industrial base.…”

Spatio-temporal evolution of multi-scale carbon emissions based on multi-source nighttime light remote sensing data in Fujian Province

“…According to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, the global average surface temperature increased by 0.85°C from 1880 to 2012 [1] . It is mainly human activities that produce a large number of greenhouse gases, the most important of which is CO 2 .…”