Contribution of Urbanization and Large‐Scale Warming to Temperature Increase From Pre‐Industrial Revolution Time to Recent Period in Central Beijing City

Abstract The annual mean Surface Air Temperature (SAT) observed during 1757–1762 in central Beijing was 3.1°C lower than that of the nearby Autonomous Weather Stations (AWS) in recent 6 years (2015–2020). The change was much larger than the averaged global warming of the past century. Applying a data set of high‐density AWS network, and the Space‐For‐Time method, we show here that more than half of the annual mean SAT increase was caused by urbanization process. The accumulative urbanization effect on change in annual mean SAT was 1.9°C, which contributed about 61% to the whole change. The global and regional scale warming induced a 1.2°C increase in annual mean SAT. Our analysis can help understand the true background warming rate since pre‐industry‐revolution era and the differentiated contributions of spatial‐scale‐varied anthropogenic drivers to local temperature increase at a typical urban area.