Future urban climate projection in a tropical megacity based on global climate change and local urbanization scenarios

The effects of urbanization on the future atmospheric environments of cities worldwide remain uncertain in the context of climate change. We introduce a general method for modeling the effects of climate change and urbanization that can be applied to any city and apply the model to Greater Jakarta megacity. Global climate change scenarios (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5) were coupled with distributed urbanization scenarios (compact and business-as-usual (BaU), based on projections of future urban morphology and anthropogenic heating) in a mesoscale weather model. Despite the predominant influence of global effects, the urban effects of individual grids were spatially varied. The highest temperature increase caused by RCP8.5&BaU scenario was detected in the northwestern outskirts of Jakarta. Meanwhile, the projected temperature was one-third lower in the RCP2.6&Compact scenario. Overall, this study offers a general method for projecting future urban climates, not only for Jakarta but also for other megacities in developing countries.