Question: Seeking DC-area folks interested in building temperature sensors for urban heat island measurement

carohowe is asking a question about thermal-photography: Follow this topic

by carohowe | July 14, 2017 15:39 | #14653

Looking for DC folks who would be willing/able to facilitate or participate in workshops to discuss programs on sensing the urban heat island in our area and/or build systems to measure temperature by bicycle.

I posted about the broader context here, and some of the solutions that seem the best would require building some systems beyond our team's technical capacity. We would need access to soldering equipment and some volunteers! We can cover costs of equipment and potentially someone to facilitate such a session.

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Comment Author Profile Picture warren commented almost 3 years ago

@stevie was talking about a project with ISeeChange.org in DC -- Stevie, did you have a link, or am I mixing it up with the project in Harlem? https://www.iseechange.org/investigations/5797f94f787db5d27a4bd77d

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Comment Author Profile Picture stevie commented almost 3 years ago

Hi! The I See Change project was in Harlem not DC, but it might be a good example to check out.

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Comment Author Profile Picture liz commented almost 3 years ago

LB: Hi @carohowe i am wondering if there might be any use to starting with publicly available data on the DC urban heat island before building a lot of sensors? For instance, this data is available from NASA's ASTER satellite https://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/data.asp and LANDSAT Thematic Mapper (TM). Public Lab organizer @lprashad works with ASTER data, and @donblair @karenv & @nedhorning have already posted how to use thermal imagery from LANDSAT https://publiclab.org/notes/donblair/07-14-2014/how-to-download-and-use-landsat-images. I know this wasn't what your question was about, but it could potentially really inform your strategy as well as give you even more data to help illustrate your concerns.

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Comment Author Profile Picture Bronwen commented almost 3 years ago

I haven't used this tool myself, but you might find this project about another open source temperature logger interesting: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030251/

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carohowe commented almost 3 years ago

Thanks so much @liz @stevie and @bronwen for your input. Liz, I think it's a fantastic idea to use existing data to inform where we'd like to go deeper. @lprashad @donblair @karenv or @nedhorning: would you be open to chatting briefly about this? In particular, wondering how does ASTER / LANDSAT data compare to "experienced temperatures" on the ground, particularly in shaded areas?

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nedhorning commented almost 3 years ago

Hi - This recent paper might be helpful: www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/6/2/38/pdf From my experience satellite based surface temperature works best over fairly homogeneous features like water, crops and bare soil. A city environment is very heterogeneous. A lot depends on the level of spatial detail and temperature precision you are looking for. I'm happy to talk about this but I'm leaving for a one week trip early Friday.

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rfdave commented almost 3 years ago

@carohowe Is Rockville close enough? I'm an experienced EE who would be happy to help build stuff

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Comment Author Profile Picture warren commented almost 3 years ago

Hi!! @madtinker recently posted a note which got some answers that may be relevant:

https://publiclab.org/questions/MadTinker/09-08-2017/suggestions-for-a-temperature-sensor-for-surface-stone-measurements

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