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YTUARTE, Sandra L., Earth and Environmental Science Master's Program,
The Unversity of Texas at San Antonio, Castroville,
TX 78009, sytuarte@lonestar.utsa.edu and CASTELLANO, Noreen, Earth and
Environmental Science Master's Program, Univ of
Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78009
Urban Hot Islands have been forming over a period of time in the United States and around the world. The urban hot island
phenomenon occurs when the air in the urban city is 2-8°F hotter than the
surrounding rural area. Scientific data has shown that the month of July’s
maximum temperature during the last 30 to 80 years has been steadily
increasing at a rate of one-half to one degree Fahrenheit every ten years.
Each city’s urban hot island varies based on the city structure and thus the
variance in the range of temperatures within the island. The expected results
of this project using MODIS Imagery was to show that the downtown area of San Antonio will have a higher temperature than the rural area
as a result from the absorption and storage of solar energy by the urban
environment and the heat released into the atmosphere from industrial and
communal processes. The MODIS/Aqua (EOS PM) (MOD 11-Land Surface Temperature
& Emissivity) satellites orbit around the earth
and pass south to north over the equator at 2:00 pm in the afternoon. MODIS Imagery is playing a vital
role in the development of interactive Earth system models able to predict
global change accurately. MODIS/Aqua can view the entire earth’s surface
every 1 to 2 days, acquiring data in 36 spectral bands, or groups of
wavelengths. Results from this data acquisition showed that July 13th had the
hottest average day temperature of 118.4°F and July 10th had the hottest
average night temperature of 85.2°F for the month of July 2004. The following
dates: July 4th day, July 13th day, July 16th night, and July 19th night
images showed the hottest temperatures to be mostly in the downtown center of
San Antonio. All the other images from day and night for July
2004 showed different areas that were hotter than the downtown center. This
data will improve our understanding of global dynamics and the processes
occurring on the land and in the lower atmosphere.
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Session No.
2
General
Session 1. Remote Sensing/GIS, Structure and Tectonics
Trinity University: Northrup Hall 040
8:30 AM-12:00 PM, Friday, April 1, 2005
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 37, No. 3,
p. 0
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