Introduction:

    The Greater Phoenix metropolitan area, is one of the fastest urbanizing areas in the United States. Recent population growth places Phoenix second in the U.S. in terms of population growth rate during the 1990's.  The city of Phoenix, rather than the entire metropolitan area, has risen to 6th among most populated cities in the U.S. Significant population increase of the entire metropolitan area has coincided with a commensurate territorial expansion beyond former boundaries not just during the most recent decade, however, but from the earliest days of the 20th century.

    Present day estimates encompass a wide range of future growth scenarios, with population values reaching between 10 and 30 million by the year 2050. 

    While technological progress has allowed for settlement, occupation, and continued expansion in a region deemed largely inhospitable due to its hot and arid climate,  increased uncertainty exists today as a result of significant constraints that have been placed on the delicate balance between urban development and the environment.  Recognizing the impact of constraints due to rapid population increase and territorial expansion becomes a necessity when issues of environmental self-sustainability, such as concerns over an increasingly limited water supply, are raised. 

Goals:

    To quantify the climatic impact of land-use/land-cover (LULC) change, over the Greater Phoenix area, through use of a state-of-the-art numerical model, on local and regional climate.  The key question is how the evolution of the area's observed landscape, in addition to a Pre-Settlement reconstruction, has affected, in a climatic sense, this principal area of human migration.

Results:

    A trio of papers documenting the climatic effect of landscape evolution, including the effect on the surface radiative budget, evolution of the planetary boundary layer, initiation of mesoscale circulations, and impact on basic climate parameters such as temperature, dew-point, temperature, and precipitation, serve as strong indicators of this important type of anthropogenic forcing: landscape change.

Paper 1:  Sensitivity of summer climate to anthropogenic land-cover change over the Greater Phoenix, AZ, region: PDF Version:

Paper 2 - Manuscript in Preparation: The Effects of 30 Years of Land Cover Change on Summertime Weather and Climate over the Greater Phoenix, AZ, Region: Part I: Surface Energy Budget Changes

Paper 3 - Manuscript in Preparation: The Effects of 30 Years of Land Cover Change on Summertime Weather and Climate over the Greater Phoenix, AZ, Region: Part II: Dynamical and Thermodynamical Response to Landscape Changes.