Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Urban thermal environment”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 37 records · Page 2

Analysis and Application of Airborne Thermal Data at the Local Level Salt Lake City, Utah

Expanding cities are transforming periurban environments such as agricultural land, natural grasslands, forests, wetlands, and and land, into urban surfaces, such as asphalt and concrete. This transformation is part of a process defined as "urban heat island". The urban surfaces get much hotter during the daylight hours in the summer than the natural or vegetated environment. The heat builds up creating a dome effect over the city making it many degrees hotter than it's surrounding area. The impacts from this, which include higher usage of air conditioners, water, etc., are numerous and costly. As cities expand, this problem is exacerbated. It is necessary to incorporate better quality data into urban analysis and for establishing methods that systematically and objectively monitor growth and change due to increased urbanization. NASA initiated Project Atlanta in 1997 "as an interdisciplinary remote sensing study to observe and measure the growth and development of the urban heat island effect over Atlanta, and its associated impacts". This project has recently included Salt Lake City, among others, in the study of the development and effects of "urban heat islands". NASA has made available to Salt Lake City, high resolution, 10 meter, multispectral thermal data collected in June 1998. The data collection was part of a special NASA over-flight, a mission supported by the U.S. EPA in conjunction with their Urban Heat Island (UHI) Mitigation Initiative. Salt Lake City is one of three pilot cities selected to participate in this unique initiative. Hence, this project constitutes a rare opportunity to capitalize upon state-of-the-art NASA technology and link it to an urban community very concerned about rapid growth and development. This data will enhance existing data and be used for improving technical tools used to plan for Utah's future.

Dudley-Murphy, Elizabeth A.↗

Huntsville Urban Development: Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Evaluate Urban Tree Canopy and Land Surface Temperature for Green Infrastructure Development and Urban Heat Mitigation in Huntsville, AL

Huntsville, Alabama’s population has grown by approximately 11% since 2010, due in part to the city’s advancing engineering industry. Rapid urban growth negatively impacts the environment by decreasing tree canopy cover and increasing impervious surface cover, which can intensify the urban heat island effect. To examine the impacts of this urban growth on the environment, the team partnered with the City of Huntsville to utilize Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the International Space Station’s Global Ecosystems Dynamic Investigation (GEDI) and ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS). The team utilized these Earth observations in combination with ancillary datasets to create a suite of end products to assist in mitigating the effects of extreme heat due to urban expansion and tree canopy loss. Annual land surface temperature (LST) was calculated and land cover classes were derived through supervised and threshold classification methods to distinguish trees, other vegetation types, impervious surfaces, and water. From 2010 to 2019, LST increased approximately 4 °F for all census tracts within the city and the total amount of tree cover increased by approximately 3%. The findings will aid the city in future decision-making processes by indicating areas that would benefit from increased green infrastructure.

Greta Paris↗

Huntsville Urban Development: Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Evaluate Urban Tree Canopy and Land Surface Temperature for Green Infrastructure Development and Urban Heat Mitigation in Huntsville, Alabama

Huntsville, Alabama’s population has grown by approximately 11% since 2010, due in part to the city’s advancing engineering industry. Rapid urban growth negatively impacts the environment by decreasing tree canopy cover and increasing impervious surface cover, which can intensify the urban heat island effect. To examine the impacts of this urban growth on the environment, the team partnered with the City of Huntsville to utilize Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the International Space Station’s Global Ecosystems Dynamic Investigation (GEDI) and ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS). The team utilized these Earth observations in combination with ancillary datasets to create a suite of end products to assist in mitigating the effects of extreme heat due to urban expansion and tree canopy loss. Annual land surface temperature (LST) was calculated and land cover classes were derived through supervised and threshold classification methods to distinguish trees, other vegetation types, impervious surfaces, and water. From 2010 to 2019, LST increased approximately 4 °F for all census tracts within the city and the total amount of tree cover increased by approximately 3%. The findings will aid the city in future decision-making processes by indicating areas that would benefit from increased green infrastructure.

Greta Paris↗

Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Evaluate Urban Tree Canopy and Land Surface Temperature for Green Infrastructure Development and Urban Heat Mitigation in Huntsville, AL

Huntsville, Alabama’s population has grown by 10.8% since 2010, due in part to the city’s advancing engineering industry. Rapid urban growth negatively impacts the environment by decreasing tree canopy cover and increasing impervious surface cover, which can intensify the urban heat island effect. To examine the impacts of this urban growth on the environment, the team partnered with the City of Huntsville to utilize Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the International Space Station’s Global Ecosystems Dynamic Investigation (GEDI) and ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS). The team utilized these Earth observations in combination with ancillary datasets to create a suite of end products to assist in mitigating the effects of extreme heat due to urban expansion and tree canopy loss. Rasters of annual land surface temperature (LST) was calculated in Google Earth Engine from 2010 to 2019. The team derived land cover classes through supervised and threshold classification methods to distinguish trees, other vegetation types, impervious surfaces, and water. From 2010 to 2019, LST increased approximately 4 °F for all census tracts within the city and the total amount of tree cover increases less than 3%. The findings will aid the city in future decision-making processes by indicating areas that would benefit from increased green infrastructure.

Greta Paris↗

An Autonomous sUAS Operating in UTM TCL4+ and STEReO Fire Scenario

This study presents a sUAS payload point design that enables autonomous BVLOS flightin UTM TCL4+ urban environments and STEReO fire responses. The payload components include an onboard computer, 360 deg LIDAR, range finder altimeter, downward-facing monocular camera, forward-facing thermal and visible light dual camera, vehicle-to-vehicle radio modem, and Li-ion smart battery. The components are mounted on an enclosed structural frame that was designed in-house. Placing the autonomy components onboard leverages the advantages of sUAS over manned aircraft such as low-cost, quick response time, and increased scalability. Autonomous capabilities include object and fire detection, V2V communication, embedded processing, and SLAM. Data processing is conducted on-board the aircraft to eliminate the dependency on a ground station downlink. The payload is evaluated in both software simulation as well as flight tests.

Autonomous UAS↗

The Need for High Spatial Resolution Multispectral Thermal Remote Sensing Data In Urban Heat Island Research

Although the study of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect dates back to the early 1800's when Luke Howard discovered London s heat island, it has only been with the advent of thermal remote sensing systems that the extent, characteristics, and impacts of the UHI have become to be understood. Analysis of the UHI effect is important because above all, this phenomenon can directly influence the health and welfare of urban residents. For example, in 1995, over 700 people died in Chicago due to heat-related causes. UHI s are characterized by increased temperature in comparison to rural areas and mortality rates during a heat wave increase exponentially with the maximum temperature, an effect that is exacerbated by the UHI. Aside from the direct impacts of the UHI on temperature, UHI s can produce secondary effects on local meteorology, including altering local wind patterns, increased development of clouds and fog, and increasing rates of precipitation either over, or downwind, of cities. Because of the extreme heterogeneity of the urban surface, in combination with the sprawl associated with urban growth, thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing data have become of significant importance in understanding how land cover and land use characteristics affect the development and intensification of the UHI. TIR satellite data have been used extensively to analyze the surface temperature regimes of cities to help observe and measure the impacts of surface temperatures across the urban landscape. However, the spatial scales at which satellite TIR data are collected are for the most part, coarse, with the finest readily available TIR data collected by the Landsat ETM+ sensor at 60m spatial resolution. For many years, we have collected high spatial resolution (10m) data using an airborne multispectral TIR sensor over a number of cities across the United States. These high resolution data have been used to develop an understanding of how discrete surfaces across the urban environment (e.g., rooftops, pavements) interact from a surface-lower atmosphere energy flux perspective, to force the development of the UHI. Moreover, the airborne TIR sensor we used in our UHI studies was a multispectral sensor that had six channels in the 8-12pm range. The advantages of collecting multispectral TIR data became readily evident as a valuable tool for better calculation of unique surface thermal energy responses for urban materials over the 8-12 micrometer region, and also for getting a better handle on surface emissivity characteristics for these discrete surfaces. In this presentation, we will provide evidence on the virtues of how high spatial resolution multispectral TIR data can provide for better analysis of the UHI that cannot now be attained via TIR data obtained from satellites. Furthermore, we wish to provide compelling evidence on why future TIR satellite sensors should collect data at fine spatial resolutions (e.g. less than or equal to 30m) to better allow for measurement of surface thermal energy fluxes from discrete urban surfaces, and to better understand how surface fluxes from different urban materials in cities around the world in different climatic regimes, affect development of the UHI characteristics.

Quattrochi, Dale A.↗

Los Angeles Urban Development: Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Evaluate the Impact of Tree Coverage on Urban Heat Mitigation

Over the last several decades the city of Los Angeles, California, has been experiencing increased temperatures resulting from the urban heat island effect. This is largely due to the expansion of developed areas which allow for the trapping of heat, posing dangerous health risks. As a solution, many organizations have turned to urban greening and tree planting initiatives to help cool vulnerable communities. NASA DEVELOP has partnered with City Plants and the City of Los Angeles, Office of Forest Management to study the role of trees in urban environments and their relation to the mitigation of local urban heat islands. This team used NASA Earth observation data spanning from 2016 to 2022, including land surface temperature and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data collected from Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) and International Space Station (ISS) ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), respectively. Data from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) were also used to obtain a supervised classification of tree canopy cover. Our analysis reveals a spatial and temporal connection between temperature and vegetation, suggesting that areas with more vegetation are less likely to suffer high summertime temperatures. Results also highlight the impacts of tree planting programs, such as the Vermont Corridor planting project, which increased tree canopy cover by up to 5% in the community between 2016 and 2022. These findings support the implementation of urban greening practices and inform residents and officials about how investing in trees will help mitigate increasing heat within Los Angeles.

Urban heat island↗

Towards An Autonomous sUAS Operating in UTM TCL4+ and STEReO Fire Scenario

This study presents two sUAS payload point designs for enabling autonomous BVLOS flight in UTM TCL4+ urban environments and STEReO fire responses. The payload components for the first payload include an onboard computer and a 360 LIDAR. The second payload, which is a continuation of the first, adds a range finder altimeter, downward-facing monocular camera, forward-facing thermal and visible light dual camera, vehicle-to-vehicle radio modem, and Li-ion smart battery. The components are mounted on enclosed structural frames that were designed in-house. Placing the autonomy components onboard leverages the advantages of sUAS over manned aircraft such as low-cost, quick response time, and increased scalability. Autonomous capabilities include embedded processing, SLAM, object and fire detection, and V2V communication. Data processing is conducted onboard the aircraft to eliminate the dependency on a groundstation downlink. The first iteration of the payload is tested in both simulation and flight tests while the continuing iteration is in development.

Autonomous UAS↗

A Multi-scale Approach to Urban Thermal Analysis

An environmental consequence of urbanization is the urban heat island effect, a situation where urban areas are warmer than surrounding rural areas. The urban heat island phenomenon results from the replacement of natural landscapes with impervious surfaces such as concrete and asphalt and is linked to adverse economic and environmental impacts. In order to better understand the urban microclimate, a greater understanding of the urban thermal pattern (UTP), including an analysis of the thermal properties of individual land covers, is needed. This study examines the UTP by means of thermal land cover response for the Salt Lake City, Utah, study area at two scales: 1) the community level, and 2) the regional or valleywide level. Airborne ATLAS (Advanced Thermal Land Applications Sensor) data, a high spatial resolution (10-meter) dataset appropriate for an environment containing a concentration of diverse land covers, are used for both land cover and thermal analysis at the community level. The ATLAS data consist of 15 channels covering the visible, near-IR, mid-IR and thermal-IR wavelengths. At the regional level Landsat TM data are used for land cover analysis while the ATLAS channel 13 data are used for the thermal analysis. Results show that a heat island is evident at both the community and the valleywide level where there is an abundance of impervious surfaces. ATLAS data perform well in community level studies in terms of land cover and thermal exchanges, but other, more coarse-resolution data sets are more appropriate for large-area thermal studies. Thermal response per land cover is consistent at both levels, which suggests potential for urban climate modeling at multiple scales.

Gluch, Renne↗

Tempe Urban Development II: Establishing an Urban Heat Exposure Severity Score for Infrastructure Prioritization in Tempe, Arizona, Using NASA Earth Observations and LiDAR

Located in the northern Sonoran Desert, Tempe, Arizona, features a semi-arid climate with summer daily maximum temperatures regularly exceeding 37.8° C (100.0° F). The area has experienced an increase in surface and air temperatures due to a steep expansion of impervious surfaces and rapid urban development. Urban heat is an increasingly pressing concern for Tempe with hundreds of heat-related deaths and thousands of heat-related hospitalizations over the past 15 years in Maricopa County. Furthermore, urban heat impacts residents’ quality of life and the economic vitality of the city. Recognizing the impacts of extreme urban heat, the City of Tempe collaborated with the Healthy Urban Environments initiative and the Fall 2020 Tempe Urban Development II NASA DEVELOP team to utilize NASA Earth observations to investigate the drivers of highest heat throughout the city. Data from Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), and Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), American Community Survey, and LiDAR data were used to identify areas experiencing the worst heat effects that could be targeted for heat mitigation and adaptation. These areas included the Escalante neighborhood, Alegre Community, University Heights, and around Dwight Park. Additionally, according to our shading analysis, the Gilliland and Escalante neighborhood walksheds do not meet the "good" shading threshold set at 30% by the Maricopa Association of Government.

DEVELOP Project Summary↗

Tempe Urban Development II: Establishing an Urban Heat Exposure Severity Score for Infrastructure Prioritization in Tempe, Arizona, Using NASA Earth Observations and LiDAR

Located in the northern Sonoran Desert, Tempe, Arizona, features a semi-arid climate with summer daily maximum temperatures regularly exceeding 37.8° C (100.0° F). The area has experienced an increase in surface and air temperatures due to a steep expansion of impervious surfaces and rapid urban development. Urban heat is an increasingly pressing concern for Tempe with hundreds of heat-related deaths and thousands of heat-related hospitalizations over the past 15 years in Maricopa County. Furthermore, urban heat impacts residents’ quality of life and the economic vitality of the city. Recognizing the impacts of extreme urban heat, the City of Tempe collaborated with the Healthy Urban Environments initiative and the Fall 2020 Tempe Urban Development II NASA DEVELOP team to utilize NASA Earth observations to investigate the drivers of heat exposure throughout the city. Data from Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), and Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), American Community Survey, and LiDAR data were used to identify areas experiencing the worst heat effects that could be targeted for heat mitigation and adaptation. These areas included the Escalante neighborhood, Alegre Community, University Heights, and around Dwight Park. Additionally, according to our shading analysis, the Gilliland and Escalante neighborhood walksheds do not meet the "good" shading threshold set at 30% by the Maricopa Association of Government.

DEVELOP Tech Paper↗

Acoustic Echo-Sounding Experiments in an Urban Environment

A 1320 Hz tuned source was mounted on a 4 ft diameter parabolic reflector, with the same driver working as the receiving transducer. This highly directional system is able to detect the small amount of energy backscattered from a vertically directed pulse of sound by inhomogeneities in the density structure of the atmosphere even in the presence of city noises which include rapid-transit and express-way traffic sounds. Results showing thermal plumes and the formation and breakup of radiation inversions are presented. A network of such echo-sounding stations in and around a city could be used to give early warning of atmospheric conditions which might lead to a pollution incident.

Damkevala, R. J.↗

Measuring Thermal Characteristics of Urban Landscapes

The additional heating of the air over the city is the result of the replacement of naturally vegetated surfaces with those composed of asphalt, concrete, rooftops and other man-made materials. The temperatures of these artificial surfaces can be 20 to 40 C higher than vegetated surfaces. Materials such as asphalt store much of the sun's energy and remains hot long after sunset. This produces a dome of elevated air temperatures 5 to 8 C greater over the city, compared to the air temperatures over adjacent rural areas. This effect is called the "urban heat island". Urban landscapes are a complex mixture of vegetated and nonvegetated surfaces. It is difficult to take enough temperature measurements over a large city area to characterize the complexity of urban radiant surface temperature variability. However, the use of remotely sensed thermal data from airborne scanners are ideal for the task. In a study funded by NASA, a series of flights over Huntsville, Alabama were performed in September 1994 and over Atlanta, Georgia in May 1997. Analysis of thermal energy responses for specific or discrete surfaces typical of the urban landscape (e.g., asphalt, building rooftops, vegetation) requires measurements at a very fine spatial scale (i.e., <15 m) to adequately resolve these surfaces and their attendant thermal energy regimes. Additionally, very fine scale spatial resolution thermal infrared data, such as that obtained from aircraft, are very useful for demonstrating to planning officials, policy makers, and the general populace, what the benefits are of the urban forest in both mitigating the urban heat island effect, in making cities more aesthetically pleasing and more habitable environments, and in overall cooling of the community. In this presentation we will examine the techniques of analyzing remotely sensed data for measuring the effect of various urban surfaces on their contribution to the urban heat island effect.

Luvall, Jeffrey C.↗

Establishing an Urban Heat Exposure Severity Index for Infrastructure Prioritization in Tempe, Arizona, Using NASA Earth Observations and LiDAR

Located on the banks of the Salt River in the Sonoran Desert, Tempe, Arizona, features a semi-arid climate with summer daily maximum temperatures regularly exceeding 37.8°C. Tempe is also subject to the southwestern monsoon season from July-September and the humidity exacerbates the high temperatures. Furthermore, the rapid urbanization experienced in Tempe has resulted in an intensification of the urban heat island. The summer of 2020 shattered the previous record of days exceeding 43.4°C, leading to higher energy and water costs, lower comfort, and increased risk of heat stroke for residents. Recognizing the impacts of extreme heat, the City of Tempe partnered with the Healthy Urban Environments initiative and NASA DEVELOP to identify census tracts that experience a higher mean land surface temperature than the city average. The NASA DEVELOP team used remotely sensed land surface temperature (LST), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalized difference built-up index (NDBI), normalized difference water index (NDWI), and albedo data calculated from Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) instruments from 2015 to 2020 to create heat hazard and exposure maps. LiDAR point cloud data, provided by the United States Geological Survey through Arizona State University’s Map and Geospatial Hub, were used to derive 3D buildings, building footprints, and tree point data for a shading analysis of walking paths, roads, and buildings at the census tract level. In situ meteorological measurements including air temperature and humidity were used to compare the macro-scale temperature measurements. The team worked with the City of Tempe to develop a methodology to process available data and identify areas of highest concern for urban heat effects within the city. With these insights, Tempe, Arizona can better address these issues with data-driven information to make decisions regarding heat mitigation and adaptation efforts.

John Dialesandro↗

Multidisciplinary Optimization of an Electric Quadrotor Urban Air Mobility Aircraft

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicles have the potential to augment urban transportation systems, allowing passengers to skip the traffic below for a fee. This emerging market is opening up the design space for a new class of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicles which could be powered by electric propulsion systems to be economical and environmentally friendly. However, development of these UAM concepts presents several additional challenges in the design process. First, these concept designs require including new disciplinary models for subsystems including the electric motors, cables, batteries and thermal management systems. Second, correctly designing and evaluating these various subsystems requires tight coupling between the discipline models to capture interactions. This paper presents the continued development of a multidisciplinary design optimization environment to aid in the development of these vehicle concepts. The multidisciplinary environment fully couples the various subsystem models allowing for the full vehicle to be designed and optimized simultaneously. In this research, the developed modeling approach is demonstrated in the analysis of a small, all-electric quadrotor UAM concept. Results from these studies show that numerous disciplines can be tightly coupled and producing improved overall vehicle designs.

Multidisciplinary Optimization↗

High-Altitude Hydration System

Three methods are being developed for keeping water from freezing during high-altitude climbs so that mountaineers can remain hydrated. Three strategies have been developed. At the time of this reporting two needed to be tested in the field and one was conceptual. The first method is Passive Thermal Control Using Aerogels. This involves mounting the fluid reservoir of the climber s canteen to an inner layer of clothing for better heat retention. For the field test, bottles were mounted to the inner fleece layer of clothing, and then aerogel insulation was placed on the outside of the bottle, and circumferentially around the drink straw. When climbers need to drink, they can pull up the insulated straw from underneath the down suit, take a sip, and then put it back into the relative warmth of the suit. For the field test, a data logger assessed the temperatures of the water reservoir, as well as near the tip of the drink straw. The second method is Passive Thermal Control with Copper-Shielded Drink Straw and Aerogels, also mounted to inner layers of clothing for better heat retention. Braided wire emanates from the inside of the fleece jacket layer, and continues up and around the drink straw in order to use body heat to keep the system-critical drink straw warm enough to keep water in the liquid state. For the field test, a data logger will be used to compare this with the above concept. The third, and still conceptual, method is Active Thermal Control with Microcontroller. If the above methods do not work, microcontrollers and tape heaters have been identified that could keep the drink straw warm even under extremely cold conditions. Power requirements are not yet determined because the thermal environment inside the down suit relative to the external environment has not been established. A data logger will be used to track both the external and internal temperatures of the suit on a summit day.

Parazynski, Scott E.↗

In Situ Air Temperature and Humidity Measurements Over Diverse Land Covers in Greenbelt, Maryland, November 2013-November 2015

As our climate changes through time there is an ever-increasing need to quantify how and where it is changing so that mitigation strategies can be implemented. Urban areas have a disproportionate amount of warming due, in part, to the conductive properties of concrete and asphalt surfaces, surface albedo, heat capacity, lack of water, etc. that make up an urban environment. The NASA Climate Adaptation Science Investigation working group at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, conducted a study to collect temperature and humidity data at 15 min intervals from 12 sites at the center. These sites represent the major surface types at the center: asphalt, building roof, grass field, forest, and rain garden. The data show a strong distinction in the thermal properties of these surfaces at the center and the difference between the average values for the center compared to a local meteorological station. The data have been submitted to Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL-DAAC) for archival in comma separated value (csv) file format (Carroll et al.,2016) and can be found by following this link: http:daac.ornl.govcgi-bindsviewer.pl?ds_id1319.

Carroll, Mark L.↗

A Remote Sensing Approach for Urban Environmental Decision-Making: An Atlanta, Georgia Case Study

Unquestionably, urbanization causes tremendous changes in land cover and land use, as well as impacting a host of environmental characteristics. For example, unlike natural surfaces, urban surfaces have very different thermal energy properties whereby they store solar energy throughout the day and continue to release it as heat well after sunset. This effect, known as the 'Urban Heat Island', serves as a catalyst for chemical reactions from vehicular exhaust and industrial activities leading to the deterioration in air quality, especially exacerbating the production of ground level ozone. 'Cool Community' strategies that utilize remote sensing data, are now being implemented as a way to reduce the impacts of the urban heat island and its subsequent environmental impacts. This presentation focuses on how remote sensing data have been used to provide descriptive and quantitative data for characterizing the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area - particularly for measuring surface energy fluxes, such as the thermal or "heat" energy that emanates from different land cover types across the Atlanta urban landscape. In turn, this information is useful for developing a better understanding of how the thermal characteristics of the city surface affect the urban heat island phenomena and, ultimately, air quality and other environmental parameters over the Atlanta metropolitan region. Additionally, this paper also provides insight on how remote sensing, with its synoptic approach, can be used to provide urban planners, local, state, and federal government officials, and other decision-makers, as well as the general public, with information to better manage urban areas as sustainable environments.

Quattrochi, Dale A.↗