U-HEAT (Urban Heat Experiment Around Lubbock, Texas) Datasets

Description

These are HOBO data collected within a 2-year long NOAA-funded project. Urban Heat Experiment Around Lubbock, Texas (U-HEAT): The U_HEAT testbed includes 23 sites in Lubbock. The file headers should provided all the information. The site locations are given in the data folder as well. Please go through the site map, site locations and other meta data files before you use these data for research. U-HEAT Testbed features Low-cost, low maintenance, easily accessible, remote data collection (Bluetooth) 2 m above ground level; Grassy surface and robust mounting Community involvement allowing uninterrupted measurements for more than 2 years period Data sets: 1 minute temporal resolution for stationary sites which makes 22 days continuous data collection.

Steps to reproduce

The main source of data collection used throughout the Urban Heat Island Experiment in Lubbock, Texas (U-HEAT) was provided by Honest Observers By Onset (HOBO) MX2301A Data Loggers obtained from Onset Inc. For this work, 25 data loggers were obtained for both the U-HEAT micronet and mobile observation deployments. 23 sensors were used for U-HEAT micronet measurements, and 2 were used for mobile observations. Due to the novelty of this research approach, a dedicated calibration experiment was required so that we could use these measurements without additional regular calibration and finally to ensure the accuracy of each sensor before deployment. The calibration experiment was conducted at the WTM Reese site (RTC, 33.61°N, -102.04°W; see Fig. 2.1) over a 5-day long period. Following construction, 22 sensors (1 previously deployed and 2 constructed for mobile measurements prior) were taken to the RTC WTM site and mounted on a surrounding 1.5 m fence line, roughly equidistant from the RTC WTM U-HEAT Micronet Design The U-HEAT micronet utilized 23 sensors placed around the Lubbock area in accordance with the urban axis of the city (Fig. 3.1; Table 3.1). The city of Lubbock has been growing towards the southwest, and as such, sensors were oriented in a SW to NE (i.e., an oval shape rather than a circle). Previous studies showed that sensor orientation based on the urban development axis proves useful in obtaining accurate UHII and UHA (Basset et al., 2016). The locations of the sensor height, land-surface feature, and deployment of the U-HEAT sensors and WTM sites follow typical WMO guidelines confirming the placement on the sensor-post on grassy surfaces, free of surrounding vegetation canopies, and other anthropogenic heat sources (Fig. 3.2). Furthermore, these sensors were easily accessible for Bluetooth connection in locations agreed upon by the property owners. The user set logging interval determines how quickly the internal storage became full. For example, at a 1 min logging interval, the storage becomes full after 21 days; at a 5 min logging interval, the storage becomes full after 121 days. To avoid data loss due to a full logger storage system, a strict revisit schedule was implemented. As mentioned in previous work, UHII is maximized during the overnight period, as such, analyses presented in this work are constrained to the nighttime period 0000—0500 CDT. This is the period of least radiative cooling in Lubbock, which, in the summer, typically accounts for 3-5°C of cooling. An urban and rural sensor example observations are shown in Fig. 3.3. Several days exhibited temperature differences between the urban and rural sites. However, days which featured synoptic events, temperatures are homogenous between the sites. Further reading here Tyler Danzig, 2024: Urban Heat Experiment Around Lubbock, Texas (U-HEAT): An Exploration of Urban Heat Islands and Associated Advection. https://hdl.handle.net/2346/100089

Institutions

• Texas Tech University

  TX, Lubbock

Categories

Funders

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

  District of Columbia, United States

  Grant ID: NA21OAR4590361

Licence