Urban Planning

Summary: Notes on cities, urban heat, land use, and planning-relevant applications of geospatial data. Last updated: 2026-08-23

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• Stop using land surface temperature as an urban heat hazard proxy: LinkedIn post by climate scientist TC Chakraborty arguing that satellite-derived land surface temperature (LST), widely used in viral "extreme heat" maps, is routinely mistaken for air temperature. LST measures the radiometric "skin" temperature of surfaces (rooftops, asphalt, tree canopies), which runs far hotter than the air people actually feel — so LST-based maps both overstate heat hazard and overstate the cooling benefit of trees on air temperature. The discussion thread cites several papers on the air-temperature-vs-LST mismatch in Urban_Heat_Islands research and debates how to communicate Remote_Sensing-derived heat data responsibly amid worsening Climate_Change-driven heatwaves. Keywords: land surface temperature, urban heat island, remote sensing, air temperature, climate communication, heatwaves