Extension and trend of the London urban heat island under Lamb weather types

• The urban heat island was extended zonally for maximum temperature. • A contraction of the urban heat island was observed in the day-night transition. • Synoptic types strongly influenced the island shape during the day. • Temperature trend was similar for maximum and minimum temperatures. • The urban heat island was not defined for the temperature trend. Understanding and describing how urban heat islands evolve is important, given the noticeable impact they have on people living in cities. This paper considers the London heat island from gridded values with one-arcminute spatial resolution over a 33-year period, from 1990 to 2022. Among the available variables in the database, maximum and minimum air temperatures were used. A cold island was not observed, since temperatures in the city centre were higher than those in the surroundings during the day and at night. However, the urban heat island extension was higher for the maximum temperature, whereas this island was limited to the city centre for the minimum temperature, in line with the area delimited by the congestion charge. Lamb weather types were determined, and it was found that the anticyclonic type prevailed, followed by southwest, west, and cyclonic types. The difference between both temperatures was about 6.8 °C in the city centre, and was particularly defined for anticyclonic and cyclonic types. Moreover, anticyclonic situations were linked with the highest urban heat island intensities for minimum temperature. Finally, the temperature trend was similar for both temperatures –about 0.2–0.3 °C/10 years in the city centre– thereby offering a possible quantification of climate change.