Establishing a correlation between the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in New York City and the land cover

Urban areas experience a higher temperature compared to their rural surroundings and this phenomenon is called Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Surface temperature varies in different areas of a city. This study's objective is to characterize the variation of the temperature at the street level in different area of New York City and to explain why those variations occur. The method used consisted on collecting climatic data on sixteen routes in New York City on June and July 2013. The instrument used is a mobile data logger equipped with three different sensors which measures the temperature, the relative humidity and the luminosity at the street level. The data are compared with the Central Park weather station data. The results reveal that temperature varies in the space throughout the City and depends on the land cover. Further studies must be done in order to find a correlation between the observation on the horizontal and vertical routes. This work is a step toward a more accurate prediction on the pattern of temperature at the street level, and therefore an enhancement of the characterization and mitigation of the UHI in New York City.