May 04, 2024
Improving Urban Temperature Mapping to Address Inequality in Chicago
Using advanced techniques to reveal temperature differences in diverse neighborhoods.
Map of the study area location; a red box highlights the study region (a). Map of local climate zones within the study area provides an overview of different land use patterns (b).
[Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) from Lee, J., et al. "Urban Land Surface Temperature Downscaling in Chicago: Addressing Ethnic Inequality and Gentrification." Remote Sensing 16(9), 1639 (2024). DOI:10.3390/rs16091639.]
The Science
A team of researchers developed a new method to create detailed temperature maps in Chicago. Satellite data and information about vegetation and buildings show temperature differences in areas as small as 70 meters. Findings show Hispanic/Latino neighborhoods are hotter than White neighborhoods, especially on the hottest days. This tool helps city planners understand and address heat issues.
The Impact
Hispanic/Latino areas in Chicago face higher temperatures than White areas, which points to a need for targeted actions to reduce these heat disparities. With improved temperature mapping, city planners can tackle urban heat problems more effectively, leading to fairer and healthier living conditions.
Summary
Researchers developed an advanced algorithm using Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) to downscale land surface temperature (LST) data from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), achieving a fine resolution of 70 meters. This approach outperformed the conventional thermal sharpening technique by significantly reducing the root mean square error from 2.51°C to 1.90°C. By integrating GOES data with high-resolution ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) data, the team enabled hourly downscaling of LST, offering a significant improvement over previous methods that provided only daily measurements.
Analysis of the hottest days in Chicago revealed a troubling pattern of ethnic inequality in temperature exposure. Specifically, Hispanic/Latino communities experienced maximum LSTs 1.5°C higher than those in predominantly White neighborhoods. This finding underscores the urgent need for urban planning interventions to address these environmental disparities. The enhanced spatial and temporal resolution of LST data allows for a more detailed understanding of diurnal temperature variations, which is essential for developing strategies to mitigate urban heat distribution and protect vulnerable communities.
Principal Investigator
Max Berkelhammer
University of Illinois–Chicago
[email protected]
Program Manager
Sally McFarlane
U.S. Department of Energy, Biological and Environmental Research (SC-33)
Urban Integrated Field Laboratories
[email protected]
Funding
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research program’s Urban Integrated Field Laboratories Community Research on Climate and Urban Science research activity under Award Number DE-SC0023226.
References
Lee, J., et al. "Urban Land Surface Temperature Downscaling in Chicago: Addressing Ethnic Inequality and Gentrification." Remote Sensing 16 (9), 1639 (2024). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16091639.