Changing Meteorological Conditions in Response to Land Use Land Cover Changes Over Bhubaneswar Urban and Surroundings

The swift increase in the global population has adversely impacted the urban environment and the quality of life as many cities suffer from traffic congestion, air pollution as well as urban heat island (UHI) effect. To quantify the adverse effects of climate change, temporal evolution of meteorological variables like air temperature, precipitation, and surface heat fluxes have become significant. This work aims to examine the decadal shift of urban surface temperature and different meteorological parameters related to the Land Use Land Cover (LULC) changes over Bhubaneswar city and its surrounding areas, where the LULC patterns are changing at an unprecedented rate. Meteorological observations from ERA5 reanalysis datasets were obtained for the study area during the period 1991–2021. Statistical anomaly and trend analysis were performed on these data to assess significant LULC-related alterations. From the analysis, it was observed that the built-up area fraction increased by 37% in the period from 2010 to 2021, with corresponding decrease in barren land and forest covers. A clear UHI effect was observed in the night time land surface temperature (LST) data over the study area for 2021, with an intensity of more than 2.3 ℃. A surge in air temperature, latent heat flux (LHF) and precipitation over the study area has been seen by 0.15 ℃, 2.32 W/m2 and 86.29 mm per decade, respectively. The diurnal temperature range was observed to decrease from 15 ℃ to about 11 ℃ over the period from 2000 to 2021.