Using DMSP-OLS light frequency data to categorize urban environments associated with US climate observing stations

An approach is presented for characterizing the urban environment surrounding 1221 US Historical Climatology Network (US HCN) stations using light frequency data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) sensor. Each grid cell of the DMSP-OLS data was thresholded into urban, suburban and rural categories. Categorized cell groups within 15km of each US HCN station were input into a decision logic to categorize the station. The station categorization was compared with existing and derived categorizations using station metadata and 1990 Census Bureau population density data.