GC121-0004
Exploring diurnal cycles of surface urban heat island intensity in Boston with land surface temperature data derived from GOES-R geostationary satellites

Wednesday, 16 December 2020
Poster
Yue Chang, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xian, China, Jingfeng Xiao, University of New Hampshire Main Campus, Durham, NH, United States, Xuxiang Li, Xi'an Jiaotong university, Xi'an, China, Steve E Frolking, University of New Hampshire, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, Durham, NH, United States, Decheng Zhou, Damariscotta, ME, United States; Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China, Annemarie Schneider, University of Wisconsin Madison, Madison, WI, United States, Qihao Weng, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN, United States, Peng Yu, NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, Center for Satellite Applications and Research, College Park, MD, United States, Xufeng Wang, CAREERI/CAS Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Lanzhou, China, Xing Li, University of New Hampshire, Earth Systems Research Center, Durham, United States, Shuguang Liu, Faculty of Life Science and Technology, and National Engineering Laboratory for Applied Technology in Forestry & Ecology in Southern China, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha, China and Yiping Wu, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Xi'an, China
Abstract:
The surface urban heat island (SUHI) is one of the most significant human-induced alterations to the Earth’s surface climate and can aggravate health risks for city dwellers during heat waves. Although the SUHI effect has received growing attention, its diurnal cycles (i.e., the variations over the full 24 hours within the diel cycle) are poorly understood due to the low temporal resolution (once or twice a day) of the land surface temperature (LST) observations from the widely-used satellite sensors (e.g., Landsat Series, Terra/Aqua MODIS). Geostationary satellites provide intensive LST observations throughout the day and the night, and thereby offer unprecedented opportunities for exploring the diurnal cycles of SUHI. Here we examined how the SUHI intensity varied over the course of the diurnal cycle in the Boston Metropolitan Area using LST observations from the NOAA’s latest generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-R). GOES-R LST was strongly correlated with MODIS LST (R2 = 0.98, p < 0.0001) across urban-core, suburban, and rural areas. We calculated the SUHI intensity at an hourly time step for both the urban-core and suburban areas using GOES-R LST data. The maximum SUHI intensity for the urban-core occurred near noon, and was +3.0℃(12:00), +5.4℃ (12:00), +4.9℃ (11:00), and +3.7℃ (12:00) in winter, spring, summer, and autumn, respectively. The maximum intensity for the suburban area was about 3.0℃ lower in spring and summer and 2.0℃ lower in autumn and winter than that of the urban-core area. The minimum SUHI intensity occurred at nighttime, and ranged from -1.0℃ to +1.0℃. The difference in the nighttime SUHI intensity between urban-core and suburban was insignificant for all seasons except the summer. The SUHI intensity showed similar diurnal variations across the seasons.We also found different relationships between SUHI intensity and potential drivers within a diurnal cycle, characterized by the strongest correlation during the middle of the day with impervious surface area and at night with tree canopy cover. Our research highlights the great potential of the new-generation geostationary satellites in revealing the detailed diurnal cycles of SUHI. Our findings have implications for informing urban planning and public health risk management.
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