ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Clim.
Sec. Climate Adaptation
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fclim.2025.1653561
This article is part of the Research TopicClimate-Environment Resiliency and AdaptationView all 10 articles
The Greater Bay Area as a Hotspot: Interacting Impacts of Urbanization and Extreme Events on Wet-Bulb Temperatures in Guangdong Province
Provisionally accepted
- School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
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idst rapid urbanization and an increasing frequency of extreme events, urban climate stress is intensifying and potentially affecting wet-bulb temperature (WBT), a key indicator of human-perceived thermal stress. This study examined the combined effects of urbanization and extreme events on the WBT dynamics in Guangdong Province, a humid tropical region in China. Using long-term meteorological data spanning five decades and urbanization metrics, we systematically analyzed urban-rural WBT differences using paired station comparisons and quantified the contribution of urbanization. Key findings highlight urban-rural WBT differences across three distinct urbanization stages: (a) Initial urbanization, where heat island effects dominate and amplify WBT differences; (b) Rapid urbanization, characterized by impervious surface expansion that widens WBT disparities to their peak, with the urban-rural difference increasing by 0.0027 °C decade-1 (p<0.001); and (c) Mature urbanization (e.g., Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, GBA), where dry island effects reduce humidity, thereby narrowing urban-rural gaps. Furthermore, extreme weather events alter these urban-rural WBT patterns. High-temperature and compound heat-drought events can reduce WBT differences, in some cases by a factor of three, while periods of extreme precipitation can amplify them. These findings underscore the critical impacts of urbanization and extreme events on urban thermal stress. This understanding is crucial for evaluating human heat stress and informing urban risk planning, particularly in the context of advancing urbanization and climate change in urban agglomerations.
Keywords: extreme events, Urbanization, Urban-Rural Wet-Bulb Temperature Differences, Urban agglomeration, climate warming
Received: 25 Jun 2025; Accepted: 09 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Huang, Su, Cui, Huang, Deng and Lin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Guotao Cui, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
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