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Peer-reviewedCC BYCommunications Earth & Environment

Two decades of urban heat intensification and exposure across 1400 cities

  • Marzie Naserikia1,2
  • Negin Nazarian3,4
  • Melissa Hart5
  • Panagiotis Sismanidis6
  • Benjamin Bechtel6
  • Katrin J. Meißner2
6 affiliations
  1. 1Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  2. 2Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  3. 3Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the 21st Century Weather, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  4. 4School of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  5. 5Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the 21st Century Weather, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia
  6. 6Department of Geography, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
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Abstract

Urban heat is a growing challenge, compounded by climate change and urban development. Yet, we lack a global understanding of heat extremes and where they coincide with population growth. Here, we explore satellite-based land surface temperature and population exposure across 1400 cities worldwide. Over two decades, urban surface temperature rose by 0.03-0.2 °C/year during daytime and 0.01-0.15 °C/year at night. The fastest increases were observed in cold-climate cities and in winter, particularly in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Extreme temperatures have also become more frequent, particularly hot nights, which now occur 47% more often in arid cities. Compounded by population growth, this translates to a 51% increase in global exposure to extreme daytime heat. Climate warming amplified the exposure increase by 82% relative to population growth alone. Relative importance of population and climate change varies by climate zone, with climate dominating daytime exposure in continental regions (71%), and population growth in arid cities (69%).

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{naserikia2026decades,
  title = {{Two decades of urban heat intensification and exposure across 1400 cities}},
  author = {Marzie Naserikia and Negin Nazarian and Melissa Hart and Panagiotis Sismanidis and Benjamin Bechtel and Katrin J. Meißner},
  journal = {Communications Earth \& Environment},
  year = {2026},
  month = may,
  doi = {10.1038/s43247-026-03665-y},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03665-y},
  note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Two decades of urban heat intensification and exposure across 1400 cities
AU  - Marzie Naserikia
AU  - Negin Nazarian
AU  - Melissa Hart
AU  - Panagiotis Sismanidis
AU  - Benjamin Bechtel
AU  - Katrin J. Meißner
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/25
JO  - Communications Earth & Environment
DO  - 10.1038/s43247-026-03665-y
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03665-y
AB  - Urban heat is a growing challenge, compounded by climate change and urban development. Yet, we lack a global understanding of heat extremes and where they coincide with population growth. Here, we explore satellite-based land surface temperature and population exposure across 1400 cities worldwide. Over two decades, urban surface temperature rose by 0.03-0.2 °C/year during daytime and 0.01-0.15 °C/year at night. The fastest increases were observed in cold-climate cities and in winter, particularly in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Extreme temperatures have also become more frequent, particularly hot nights, which now occur 47% more often in arid cities. Compounded by population growth, this translates to a 51% increase in global exposure to extreme daytime heat. Climate warming amplified the exposure increase by 82% relative to population growth alone. Relative importance of population and climate change varies by climate zone, with climate dominating daytime exposure in continental regions (71%), and population growth in arid cities (69%).
SN  - 2662-4435
ER  -