Impact of heat storage on remote-sensing based quantification of anthropogenic heat in urban environments

Yu, Z., Hu, L., Sun, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2486-6146, Albertson, J. and Li, Q. (2021) Impact of heat storage on remote-sensing based quantification of anthropogenic heat in urban environments. Remote Sensing of Environment, 262. 112520. ISSN 0034-4257 doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2021.112520

Abstract/Summary

Anthropogenic heat (AH) significantly impacts urban climates. Although combining the surface energy balance (SEB) with remote sensing data (RS-SEB) is promising for AH quantification, it has been shown to yield paradoxical low AH values in urban centers. Some speculation on the causes for the underestimation has appeared in the literature; however, none has been verified or thoroughly evaluated, largely hindering the further improvement of spatial representation of AH estimated through the RS-SEB approach. Here by casting the difference in the SEB between the observed reference state and a hypothetical scenario without AH, we developed a thermal stability analysis framework to identify the primary causes. Using AH estimations from six representative US cities based on Local Climate Zone (LCZ), we find that the reduced efficiency of the pathway from AH to sensible heat flux near high-rise buildings results in greater heat storage, which is a primary contributor to the underestimation. This study highlights the importance of heat storage in AH quantification using remote sensing data and provides evidence for potentially correcting the bias in AH with improved heat storage modeling.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/98434
Identification Number/DOI	10.1016/j.rse.2021.112520
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	Elsevier
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