Urbanization processes widen global divergence in extreme temperature variability

Abstract

Abstract Extreme temperature variability (ETV) is a key dimension of climate risk for billions of residents. However, how urbanization shapes global ETV divergence remains unclear. Here, we assemble a 1950–2020 panel of 10,522 cities and demonstrate that ETV trajectories diverge by development status as measured by the human development index (HDI). ETV intensifies in high-development cities, whereas it slowly weakens in low-development cities, resulting in a current gap of roughly 1.66 °C. Decomposing ETV into event frequency and intensity reveals that cumulative ETV is driven mainly by intensity. Using an interpretable machine-learning framework, we find that aerosols are the urban factor most strongly associated with ETV after controlling for climate and geography. Blue-green space is consistently associated with lower ETV, whereas urban morphology has a smaller and context-dependent effect. These findings link global ETV inequality to urban governance and support targeted management that focusses on limiting volatility under climate risk.