Relationship between weather conditions advantageous for the development of urban heat island and atmospheric macrocirculation changes

Urban heat island (UHI) and climate change belong to two separate scientific fields within meteorology nowadays. Climate change, however, may affect the characteristics of UHI as well. Various atmospheric macrocirculation conditions determine the frequency of certain weather conditions at a given area, thus they influence the frequency of the occurrence of conditions advantageous for UHI development. In the present research, the time series data of conditions advantageous for UHI (advantageous meteorological conditions [AMC]) were determined in the case of Debrecen (Hungary) and similar patterns existing in the AMC time series were searched in those of North Atlantic Oscillation, East Atlantic Oscillation, East Atlantic (EA)/Western Russia (WR) Pattern and Scandinavian Oscillation indices for the period between 1961 and 2010 using Gabor–Morlet wavelet transformations. Several significantly coherent oscillations were found. The occurrence frequency of AMC can be approximated from macrocirculation conditions in these periods, according to the concept of heat island. These estimations are consistent with the calculated AMC time series. This proves that there is some relationship between macrocirculation and heat island development. Based on the results, using seasonal and climate models the changes of UHIs at seasonal and climatic scales may become predictable.