Analysis of Albedo Influence on Surface Urban Heat Island by Spaceborne Detection and Airborne Thermography

Urban environment overheating is gaining growing importance for its consequences on citizens comfort and energy consumption. The surface albedo represents one of the most influencing parameters on the local temperature, therefore, its punctual and large scale detection could give a significant contribution to the urban microclimate assessment. A comparison of satellite data with airborne infrared thermography images is proposed for the city of Florence, starting from temperature analyses and moving to surface albedo assessments. It is shown that, despite the aircraft surveys higher resolution, their area covering limitation, sporadic availability, and high cost make the satellite retrieved data competitive, considering that the current 30 m pixel size of the Landsat images seems to be already suitable for the construction material classification.