Application of spatially gridded temperature and land cover data sets for urban heat island analysis

• Gridded values of impervious surface area (ISA) were quantified from satellite data.
• ISA was used to designate each grid cell as urban or rural.
• Urban and rural temperature differences increased as urban ISA increased.
• Gridded ISA data provide detailed information relevant for urban climate analyses.
• UHI analyses using data exclusively from climate stations may be insufficient.

Two gridded data sets that included (1) daily mean temperatures from 2006 through 2011 and (2) satellite-derived impervious surface area, were combined for a spatial analysis of the urban heat-island effect within the Dallas-Ft. Worth Texas region. The primary advantage of using these combined datasets included the capability to designate each 1 × 1 km grid cell of available temperature data as urban or rural based on the level of impervious surface area within the grid cell. Generally, the observed differences in urban and rural temperature increased as the impervious surface area thresholds used to define an urban grid cell were increased. This result, however, was also dependent on the size of the sample area included in the analysis. As the spatial extent of the sample area increased and included a greater number of rural defined grid cells, the observed urban and rural differences in temperature also increased. A cursory comparison of the spatially gridded temperature observations with observations from climate stations suggest that the number and location of stations included in an urban heat island analysis requires consideration to assure representative samples of each (urban and rural) environment are included in the analysis.