Urban heat islands are small areas where temperatures are unnaturally high - usually due to dense buildings, expansive hard surfaces, or a lack of tree cover or greenspace. People living in these communities are exposed to more dangerous conditions, especially as daytime high and nighttime low temperatures increase over time.
NOAA Climate Program Office and
CAPA Strategies have
partnered with cities around the United States to map urban heat islands. Using Sentinel-2 satellite thermal data along with on-the-ground sensors, air temperature and heat indexes are calculated for morning, afternoon, and evening time periods. The NOAA Visualization Lab, part of the
NOAA Satellite and Information Service, has made the original
heat mapping data available as dynamic image services.
Dataset Summary
Phenomenon Mapped: Sensing package time step values
Units: decimal degrees
Cell Size: 30 meters
Pixel Type: 32 bit floating point
Data Coordinate Systems: WGS84
Mosaic Projection: WGS84
Extent: cities within the United States
Source: NOAA and CAPA Strategies
Publication Date: September 20, 2021
What can you do with this layer?
This imagery layer supports communities' UHI spatial analysis and mapping capabilities. The symbology can be manually changed, or a processing template applied to the layer will provide a custom rendering. Each city can be queried.
Cities IncludedBaltimore, Boise, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Nampa, Oakland-Berkeley, Portland, Richmond, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Juan, Victorville, Washington, West Palm Beach, Worcester, Charleston and Yonkers
Cities may apply to be a part of the Heat Watch program through the CAPA Strategies
website.
Attribute Table Information
city_name: Washington DC