scholarly journals Remotely Sensed Derived Land Surface Temperature (LST) as a Proxy for Air Temperature and Thermal Comfort at a Small Geographical Scale

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 410
Author(s):  
Ran Goldblatt ◽  
Abdullah Addas ◽  
Daynan Crull ◽  
Ahmad Maghrabi ◽  
Gabriel Gene Levin ◽  
...  

Urban Heat Islands (UHIs) and Urban Cool Islands (UCIs) can be measured by means of in situ measurements and interpolation methods, which often require densely distributed networks of sensors and can be time-consuming, expensive and in many cases infeasible. The use of satellite data to estimate Land Surface Temperature (LST) and spectral indices such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has emerged in the last decade as a promising technique to map Surface Urban Heat Islands (SUHIs), primarily at large geographical scales. Furthermore, thermal comfort, the subjective perception and experience of humans of micro-climates, is also an important component of UHIs. It remains unanswered whether LST can be used to predict thermal comfort. The objective of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of remotely sensed data, including a derived LST, at a small geographical scale, in the case study of King Abdulaziz University (KAU) campus (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) and four surrounding neighborhoods. We evaluate the potential use of LST estimates as proxy for air temperature (Tair) and thermal comfort. We estimate LST based on Landsat-8 measurements, Tair and other climatological parameters by means of in situ measurements and subjective thermal comfort by means of a Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) model. We find a significant correlation (r = 0.45, p < 0.001) between LST and mean Tair and the compatibility of LST and Tair as equivalent measures using Bland-Altman analysis. We evaluate several models with LST, NDVI, and Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) as data inputs to proxy Tair and find that they achieve error rates across metrics that are two orders of magnitude below that of a comparison with LST and Tair alone. We also find that, using only remotely sensed data, including LST, NDVI, and NDBI, random forest classifiers can detect sites with “very hot” classification of thermal comfort nearly as effectively as estimates using in situ data, with one such model attaining an F1 score of 0.65. This study demonstrates the potential use of remotely sensed measurements to infer the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) and subjective thermal comfort at small geographical scales as well as the impacts of land cover and land use characteristics on UHI and UCI. Such insights are fundamental for sustainable urban planning and would contribute enormously to urban planning that considers people’s well-being and comfort.

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 51-57
Author(s):  
Igor Esau ◽  
Victoria Miles ◽  
Andrey Soromotin ◽  
Oleg Sizov ◽  
Mikhail Varentsov ◽  
...  

Abstract. Persistent warm urban temperature anomalies – urban heat islands (UHIs) – significantly enhance already amplified climate warming in the Arctic. Vulnerability of urban infrastructure in the Arctic cities urges a region-wide study of the UHI intensity and its attribution to UHI drivers. This study presents an overview of the surface and atmospheric UHIs in all circum-Arctic settlements (118 in total) with the population larger than 3000 inhabitants. The surface UHI (SUHI) is obtained from the land surface temperature (LST) data products of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) archive over 2000–2016. The atmospheric UHI is obtained from screen-level temperature provided by the Urban Heat Island Arctic Research Campaign (UHIARC) observational network over 2015–2018. Several other UHI studies are included for comparisons. The analysis reveals strong and persistent UHI during both summer and winter seasons. The annual mean surface UHI magnitudes vary from −0.6 ∘C (Hammerfest) to 4.3 ∘C (Murmansk). Thus, the observed UHI is likely an important climatic factor that must be included in future adjustment of urban construction, safety, and environmental quality codes.


Ekoloji ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (84) ◽  
pp. 107-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sinasi Kaya ◽  
Umut Gul Basar ◽  
Mehmet Karaca ◽  
Dursun Zafer Seker

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6106
Author(s):  
Irantzu Alvarez ◽  
Laura Quesada-Ganuza ◽  
Estibaliz Briz ◽  
Leire Garmendia

This study assesses the impact of a heat wave on the thermal comfort of an unconstructed area: the North Zone of the Island of Zorrotzaurre (Bilbao, Spain). In this study, the impact of urban planning as proposed in the master plan on thermal comfort is modeled using the ENVI-met program. Likewise, the question of whether the urbanistic proposals are designed to create more resilient urban environments is analyzed in the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events, especially heat waves. The study is centered on the analysis of temperature variables (air temperature and average radiant temperature) as well as wind speed and relative humidity. This was completed with the parameters of thermal comfort, the physiological equivalent temperature (PET) and the Universal Temperature Climate Index (UTCI) for the hours of the maximum and minimum daily temperatures. The results demonstrated the viability of analyzing thermal comfort through simulations with the ENVI-met program in order to analyze the behavior of urban spaces in various climate scenarios.


Author(s):  
Дмитрий Владимирович Сарычев ◽  
Ирина Владимировна Попова ◽  
Семен Александрович Куролап

Рассмотрены вопросы мониторинга теплового загрязнения окружающей среды в городах. Представлена методика отбора спектрозональных спутниковых снимков, их обработки и интерпретации полученных результатов. Для оценки городского острова тепла были использованы снимки с космического аппарата Landsat 8 TIRS. На их основе построены карты пространственной структуры острова тепла города Воронежа за летний и зимний периоды. Определены тепловые аномалии и выявлено 11 основных техногенных источников теплового загрязнения в г. Воронеже, установлена их принадлежность к промышленным зонам предприятий, а также к очистным гидротехническим сооружениям. Поверхностные температуры данных источников в среднем были выше фоновых температур приблизительно на 6° зимой и на 15,5° С летом. Синхронно со спутниковой съемкой были проведены наземные контрольные тепловизионные измерения температур основных подстилающих поверхностей в г. Воронеже. Полученные данные показали высокую сходимость космических и наземных измерений, на основании чего сделан вывод о надежности используемых данных дистанционного зондирования Земли в мониторинговых наблюдениях теплового загрязнения городской среды. Результаты работ могут найти применение в городском планировании и медицинской экологии. The study deals with the remote sensing and monitoring of urban heat islands. We present a methodology of multispectral satellite imagery selection and processing. The study bases on the freely available Landsat 8 TIRS data. We used multitemporal thermal band combinations to make maps of the urban heat island of Voronezh (Russia) during summer and winter periods. That let us identify 11 artificial sources of heat in Voronezh. All of them turned out to be allocated within industrial zones of plants and water treatment facilities. Land surface temperatures (LST) of these sources were approximately 6° and 15.5° C above the background temperatures in winter and summer, respectively. To prove the remotely sensed temperatures we conducted ground control measurements of LST of different surface types at the satellite revisit moments. Our results showed a significant correlation between the satellite and ground-based measurements, so the maps we produced in this study should be robust. They are of use in urban planning and medical ecology studies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. eaau4299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Li ◽  
Weilin Liao ◽  
Angela J. Rigden ◽  
Xiaoping Liu ◽  
Dagang Wang ◽  
...  

More than half of the world’s population now live in cities, which are known to be heat islands. While daytime urban heat islands (UHIs) are traditionally thought to be the consequence of less evaporative cooling in cities, recent work sparks new debate, showing that geographic variations of daytime UHI intensity were largely explained by variations in the efficiency with which urban and rural areas convect heat from the land surface to the lower atmosphere. Here, we reconcile this debate by demonstrating that the difference between the recent finding and the traditional paradigm can be explained by the difference in the attribution methods. Using a new attribution method, we find that spatial variations of daytime UHI intensity are more controlled by variations in the capacity of urban and rural areas to evaporate water, suggesting that strategies enhancing the evaporation capability such as green infrastructure are effective ways to mitigate urban heat.


Author(s):  
Tao Chen ◽  
Anchang Sun ◽  
Ruiqing Niu

Man-made materials now cover a dominant proportion of urban areas, and such conditions not only change the absorption of solar radiation, but also the allocation of the solar radiation and cause the surface urban heat island effect, which is considered a serious problem associated with the deterioration of urban environments. Although numerous studies have been performed on surface urban heat islands, only a few have focused on the effect of land cover changes on surface urban heat islands over a long time period. Using six Landsat image scenes of the Metropolitan Development Area of Wuhan, our experiment (1) applied a mapping method for normalized land surface temperatures with three land cover fractions, which were impervious surfaces, non-chlorophyllous vegetation and soil and vegetation fractions, and (2) performed a fitting analysis of fierce change areas in the surface urban heat island intensity based on a time trajectory. Thematic thermal maps were drawn to analyze the distribution of and variations in the surface urban heat island in the study area. A Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis was used to extract the land cover fraction information. Then, six ternary triangle contour graphics were drawn based on the land surface temperature and land cover fraction information. A time trajectory was created to summarize the changing characteristics of the surface urban heat island intensity. A fitting analysis was conducted for areas showing fierce changes in the urban heat intensity. Our results revealed that impervious surfaces had the largest impacts on surface urban heat island intensity, followed by the non-chlorophyllous vegetation and soil fraction. Moreover, the results indicated that the vegetation fraction can alleviate the occurrence of surface urban heat islands. These results reveal the impact of the land cover fractions on surface urban heat islands. Urban expansion generates impervious artificial objects that replace pervious natural objects, which causes an increase in land surface temperature and results in a surface urban heat island.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Granero-Belinchon ◽  
Aurelie Michel ◽  
Jean-Pierre Lagouarde ◽  
Jose A. Sobrino ◽  
Xavier Briottet

Urban Heat Islands (UHIs) at the surface and canopy levels are major issues in urban planification and development. For this reason, the comprehension and quantification of the influence that the different land-uses/land-covers have on UHIs is of particular importance. In order to perform a detailed thermal characterisation of the city, measures covering the whole scenario (city and surroundings) and with a recurrent revisit are needed. In addition, a resolution of tens of meters is needed to characterise the urban heterogeneities. Spaceborne remote sensing meets the first and the second requirements but the Land Surface Temperature (LST) resolutions remain too rough compared to the urban object scale. Thermal unmixing techniques have been developed in recent years, allowing LST images during day at the desired scales. However, while LST gives information of surface urban heat islands (SUHIs), canopy UHIs and SUHIs are more correlated during the night, hence the development of thermal unmixing methods for night LSTs is necessary. This article proposes to adapt four empirical unmixing methods of the literature, Disaggregation of radiometric surface Temperature (DisTrad), High-resolution Urban Thermal Sharpener (HUTS), Area-To-Point Regression Kriging (ATPRK), and Adaptive Area-To-Point Regression Kriging (AATPRK), to unmix night LSTs. These methods are based on given relationships between LST and reflective indices, and on invariance hypotheses of these relationships across resolutions. Then, a comparative study of the performances of the different techniques is carried out on TRISHNA synthesized images of Madrid. Since TRISHNA is a mission in preparation, the synthesis of the images has been done according to the planned specification of the satellite and from initial Aircraft Hyperspectral Scanner (AHS) data of the city obtained during the DESIREX 2008 capaign. Thus, the coarse initial resolution is 60 m and the finer post-unmixing one is 20 m. In this article, we show that: (1) AATPRK is the most performant unmixing technique when applied on night LST, with the other three techniques being undesirable for night applications at TRISHNA resolutions. This can be explained by the local application of AATPRK. (2) ATPRK and DisTrad do not improve significantly the LST image resolution. (3) HUTS, which depends on albedo measures, misestimates the LST, leading to the worst temperature unmixing. (4) The two main factors explaining the obtained performances are the local/global application of the method and the reflective indices used in the LST-index relationship.


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