Abstract: With the rapidly development of city scale and the rapid expansion of urban population, the urban heat island effect caused by dramatic changes of the structure of urban underlying surface and the increasing of urban anthropogenic heat have gradually become an important?impact factor on?urban living environment and?human health. Urban heat island effect has become a hot topic of urban climate and regional climate. In?order?to study?the?urban heat island effect, progresses at home and abroad were summarized, including the concept and formation mechanism of urban heat island, the three methods used to study the urban heat island effect i.e. the observation method of ground meteorological elements, remote sensing monitoring method, and simulation method of boundary layer numerical model. These summaries indicate that there are some shortages in this area. For example, the research in this area is not perfect and deep enough. Most studies are based on the large scale, and there is certain limitation for each method. Thus, the high-resolution satellite remote sensing images for multi-scale, multi-platform monitoring systems should be combined, and the effect of aerosol particles on radiative forcing should be taken into account for studying the urban heat island.

Key words: Urban heat island, Urban climate, Scale