URBAN TERRAIN CLIMATOLOGY AND REMOTE SENSING∗

∗This study is part of an effort by the Geography Program, U. S. Geological Survey, to investigate environmental consequences of land use patterns and changes. See R. H. Alexander, “CARETS—An Experimental Regional Information System Using ERTS Data,”Third Earth Resources Technology Satellite—1 Symposium (NASA SP-351), Vol. I, Sect. A (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center, Washington, D. C., 1974), pp. 505–22. The imaging aircraft for the project reported in this paper was flown by the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan under contract to NASA and in support of U. S. G. S. Contract 14–08–0001–11914 with the University of California, Riverside. This project was funded preliminary to an investigation of the Washington-Baltimore heat island as part of NASA/Skylab Investigation No. 469.

ABSTRACT

Urban areas have been conceived of as monolithic heat islands because traditional ground observation techniques do not lend themselves to more specific analyses. Observations of urban energy-exchange obtained from calibrated electro-optical scanners combined with energy budget simulation techniques provide tools to relate the urban land use mosaic to the heat island phenomenon. Maps of surface energy-related phenomena were made from airborne scanner outputs for selected flightpaths across the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Conditions for the flight time were simulated according to the various types of land use using an energy budget simulation model which lends itself to extrapolation of simulated grid-point conditions into a map form. Maps made by simulation compare sufficiently well with those made by aerial observation to encourage further refinement of the simulation approach.

Notes

∗This study is part of an effort by the Geography Program, U. S. Geological Survey, to investigate environmental consequences of land use patterns and changes. See R. H. Alexander, “CARETS—An Experimental Regional Information System Using ERTS Data,”Third Earth Resources Technology Satellite—1 Symposium (NASA SP-351), Vol. I, Sect. A (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center, Washington, D. C., 1974), pp. 505–22. The imaging aircraft for the project reported in this paper was flown by the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan under contract to NASA and in support of U. S. G. S. Contract 14–08–0001–11914 with the University of California, Riverside. This project was funded preliminary to an investigation of the Washington-Baltimore heat island as part of NASA/Skylab Investigation No. 469.

1 R. W. Pease, S. R. Pease, and R. H. Alexander, Mapping Terrestrial Radiation Emission with the RS14 Scanner, Technical Report 4, U. S. G. S. Contract No. 14–08–0001–11914, University of California, Riverside (1970), 27 pp.

2 Isarithmic maps were produced by the University of California, Riverside, and line-printed graymaps were produced by the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan.

3 S. R. Pease and R. W. Pease, Photographic Films as Remote Sensors for Measuring Albedos of Terrestrial Surfaces, Technical Report 5, U. S. G. S. Contract No. 14–08–0001–11914, University of California, Riverside (1972), p. 13.

4 R. W. Pease and D. H. Nicholss, “Net Radiation and other Energy-Related Maps from Remotely Sensed Imagery,”Proceedings of the American Society of Photogrammetry, 41st Annual Meeting (1975), pp. 322–37, describes the making of the isarithmic maps. F. J. Thomson and R. J. Dillman, Baltimore, Maryland, Radiation Balance Mapping (Nov. 1973), unnumbered technical report, Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, describes making the lineprinted graymaps.

5 A method for making this correlation is described in R. W. Pease, “Mapping Terrestrial Radiation Emission with a Scanning Radiometer,”Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium of Remote Sensing of the Environment (1971), pp. 501–10.

6 S. Outcalt, “A Reconnaissance Experiment in Mapping and Modeling the Effect of Land Use on Urban Thermal Regimes,”Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 11 (1972), pp. 1369 73.

7 The pioneering use of computers was by M. H. Halstead in “A Preliminary Report on the Design of a Computer for Micrometeorology” (with R. Richman, W. Covey, and J. Merryman), Journal of Meteorology, Vol. 14 (1957), pp. 308–25 and M. A. Estoque, “A Numerical Model of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer,”Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 68 (1963), pp. 1103 13. The numerical simulation of surface energy budgets has progressed due to the efforts of several workers. More recent developments include L. Myrup, “A Numerical Model of the Urban Heat Island,”Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 8 (1969), pp. 908 18; T. M. Tag, “Surface Temperatures in an Urban Environment,”Atmospheric Modification by Surface Influences, Part I, Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University (1969), 72 pp.; W. G. Zdunkowski and D. C. Trask, “Applications of a Radiative-Conductive Model to the Simulation of Nocturnal Temperature Changes over Different Soil Types,”Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 10 (Oct. 1971), pp. 937 48; J. L. McElroy, “A Numerical Study of the Nocturnal Heat Island over a Medium-Sized Mid-latitude City (Columbus, Ohio),”Boundary Layer Meteorology, Vol. 3 (1973), pp. 442 53; M. A. Atwater, “Thermal Changes Induced by Urbanization and Pollutants,”Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 14 (1975), pp. 1061-71; and R. D. Bornstein, “The Two-Dimensional URBNET Urban Boundary Layer Model,”Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 14 (1975), pp. 1459 77. The Bornstein work also attempts a spatial expansion. Most models utilize close to the same inputs but handle the parameters in a slightly different manner. For details of the modification of the Myrup model consult S. Outcalt, “A Numerical Climate Simulator,”Geographical Analysis, Vol. 13 (1971), pp. 629 36 and S. Outcalt, “The Development and Application of a Simple Digital Surface Climate Simulation,”Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 11 (1972), pp. 629 36.

8 Outcalt, op. cit., footnote 7.

9 H. Lettau, “Note on Aerodynamic Roughness Parameter Estimation on the Basis of Roughness Element Description,”Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 8 (1969), pp. 828 32; and Myrup, op. cit., footnote 7.

10 Outcalt, op. cit., footnote 6.

11 S. Outcalt, “A Synthetic Analysis of Seasonal Influence in the Effects of Land Use on the Urban Thermal Regimes,”Archiv fuer Meteorologie Geophysik und Bioklimatologie, Vol. 20 B (1972), pp. 253 60.

12 F. W. Nicholas, Parameterization of the Urban Fabric: A Study of Surface Roughness with Application to Baltimore, Maryland, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 1974.

13 C. Jenner, Modeling the Effect of Land Use on the Urban Temperature Field, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 1975.

14 L. Myrup and D. Morgan, Numerical Model of the Urban Atmosphere, Vol. 1, Contributions in Atmospheric Science, 4 (University of California, Davis, 1972), 237 pp.

15 W. R. Tobler. “Geographical Filters and their Inverses,”Geographical Analysis, Vol. 1 (1969), pp. 234 53.