ARSF project GB08/19: Investigating the Urban Energy Balance of London. Led by: Prof. Martin Wooster, Environmental Monitoring & Modelling Research Group, Department of Geography, King's College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, UK. Location: London, UK.

Urbanization alters the urban energy balance (UEB), urban heat island (UHI), growth of the boundary layer, and other biophysical processes. Generally in situ (tower-based) measures of urban energy exchanges are spatially limited relative to the heterogeneity in the urban matrix. ARSF remote sensing (RS) capability allowed parameters of urban land cover class (vegetation, soil, concrete etc), surface topography (building presence, height) and surface temperature to be determined remotely, which when combined with local meteorological data can be used to model the UEB, for example the Local-Scale Urban Meteorological Parameterization Scheme. We explored the use of ARSF-RS data to provide inputs to LUMPS and provided spatially explicit data on the UEB, and related variables (e.g. UHI intensity) that have direct impact on human comfort and health. If applicable to London, such models provided understanding of the urban environment and, potentially, aid in planning new developments. Ultimately such models were run without frequent airborne overflight data since the high resolution land cover classification (from the airborne imagery) did not change significantly over short periods of time, and allowed use of the temporal data of relatively high spatial resolution thermally-equipped satellite-based sensors (e.g. ASTER).