Impacts of Land Use and Land Cover on Regional Summer Time Coastal Cooling and Inland Warming in Central California

Analysis of California long term temperature observational data suggested a rapid regional warming of land areas over coastal waters due to the combined effects of local land use and global warming, which resulted in increases in the sea breeze potential, cooling areas along flow path. The effects of land cover and land use in modifying these climatological coastal flow patterns are studied using regional atmospheric numerical simulations. The study is focused on understanding summer heating trends in the coastal areas of California in general and the San Francisco Bay Area in particular. The summertime month of June 2003 is simulated with two sets of land use and land cover for California; the potential land use and land cover of pre development and the current land use and land cover. Statistical analysis of the difference patterns of wind and temperatures are undertaken to quantify the impacts of the long term land use and land cover changes on the regional asymmetric warming.