Some Advective Influences on Urban-Rural Temperature Regimes

GLEN A. MAROTZ Kansas University, Lawrence, Kansas Abstract The effects of advection and advectional changes associated with synoptic regime changes on urban-rural temperature conditions has not received much attention. Description of effects during nocturnal passage of warm and cold fronts over a small central eastern Great Plains area are the object of this study. Warm frontal passage resulted in creation of a pseudo-heat island, affected urban and rural temperature fields more than those in residential areas, and raised temperatures generally over the study area. Warm air advection in the period between frontal passages smoothed spatial contrasts and retarded the rate of temperature decrease over the city. Cold frontal passage increased the rate of temperature decrease and smoothed spatial gradients among land use categories. Trans. Kans. Acad. Sci., Vol. 78 (1-2), 1975.