NASA NTRS2000
The physical geography of the city affects numerous aspects of its interlinked biophysical, social, and land-atmosphere characteristics - those attributes that come together to form the total urban environment. One approach to studying the multitude of interactions that occur as a result of urbanization is to view the city from a systems ecology perspective, where energy and material cycle into and out of the urban milieu. Thus, the urban ecosystem is synergistic in linking land, air, water, and living organisms in a vast network of interrelated physical, human, and biological process. Given the number and the shear complexity of the exchanges and, ultimately, their effects, that occur within the urban environment, we are focusing our research on looking at how the morphology or urban fabric of the city, drives thermal energy exchanges across the urban landscape. The study of thermal energy attributes for different cities provides insight into how thermal fluxes and characteristics are partitioned across the city landscape in response to each city's morphology. We are using thermal infrared remote sensing data obtained at a high spatial resolution from aircraft, along with satellite data, to identify and quantify thermal energy characteristics for 4 U.S. cities: Atlanta, GA, Baton Rouge, LA, Salt Lake City, UT, and Sacramento, CA. Analysis of how thermal energy is spatially distributed across the urban landscapes for these cities provides a unique perspective for understanding how the differing morphology of cities forces land-atmosphere exchanges, such as the urban heat island effect, as well as related meteorological and air quality interactions. Keyword: urban ecosystems, remote sensing, urban heat island