Human land use intensity affects the surface energy balance by changing the biogeophysical parameters. This study used Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer remote sensing data and surface energy balance algorithms to quantify changes in surface energy budgets corresponding to changes in land use in Beijing from 2000 to 2015. Land use was reclassified by considering land use intensity. The difference in the latent heat flux (LE) and net radiation (R_n) (LE−R_n) expressed the warming or cooling effect. The results showed that: (i) The increasing trend of net longwave radiation in Beijing offset the decreasing trend of net shortwave radiation. The R_n changed slightly, while the LE and LE−R_n showed a significant increase of 0.55 and 0.56 W/(m²∙year), respectively. The findings indicated that considering only radiative forcing, or even R_n, was not enough to measure the impacts of land use change on the energy budget. (ii) The order of R_n, LE, and LE−R_n values from high to low were natural and seminatural areas, cropland, mixed pixel areas, urban expansion areas, and old urban areas. Compared with natural and seminatural areas, the changing LE−R_n trend in the other four land use types decreased with the increase in human impact intensity, indicating that human activities weakened the positive change trend of LE−R_n and increased the warming effect. (iii) Although the temporal trend of LE increased in Beijing from 2000 to 2015, the effect of R_n on LE−R_n was greater than that of LE, especially in the four land use types affected by human activities. The results for surface temperature in various land use types confirmed this point. This study highlights the energy budget differences of various land use types affected by human activities. It makes an important contribution to understanding the urban heat island effect from a biogeophysical perspective.

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