NASA’s Airborne and Satellite Thermal Views of Urban Heat Risk

 Dr. Glynn Hulley| Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems group at JPL

Talk Abstract:

Extreme heat is becoming the deadliest, costliest climate threat facing cities, and most of it is invisible to the naked eye. Using high-resolution thermal infrared data from NASA's ECOSTRESS satellite (70m) and the airborne HyTES sensor (5m), we map the urban heat island effect down to the level of individual buildings and streets. This talk shows how combining space- and air-based thermal imaging reveals who swelters and who doesn't across Los Angeles by exposing how diurnal heat patterns, mitigation efforts, and decades of geopolitical segregation intersect to create starkly unequal heat exposure. With next-generation missions (EAGLE-TIR, TRISHNA, LSTM) poised to make this kind of data globally available on a daily basis, we're entering a new era of seeing, and addressing, urban heat inequity from above.

Biography:

Dr. Hulley is a member of the Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems group at JPL with 20 years of experience in thermal infrared remote sensing. His research interests include multi- and hyperspectral thermal infrared remote sensing of Earth surface properties, urban climate science, and investigating links between extreme heat and public health. He is principal investigator for the NASA Land Surface Temperature (LST) and emissivity products for MODIS, VIIRS, and Landsat, and is the level-2 thermal lead for the ECOSTRESS mission. A key aspect of his research is the development of new techniques to analyze and extract land surface temperature and emissivity from thermal remotely sensed data.