EPA website that provides information about the urban heat island effect and strategies to mitigate it:

http://www.epa.gov/heatisland/index.htm

 

A PDF from the EPA that explains the basic types of heat islands and how they are measured using remote sensing:

http://www.epa.gov/hiri/resources/pdf/EPA_How_to_measure_a_UHI.pdf

 

 

Remote sensors used to study the UHI effect:

 

An in depth technical look at how thermal band readings from Landsat can be converted to temperature:

http://www.yale.edu/ceo/Documentation/Landsat_DN_to_Kelvin.pdf

 

USGS website providing many links to descriptions of overall Landsat functionality:

http://landsat.usgs.gov/index.php

 

NASA website that provides information about MODIS, one of the sensors commonly used to study the Urban Heat Islands:

http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/about/

 

In depth look at the thermal infrared sensor (TIRS) aboard the Landsat satellite, which collects data commonly used to study urban heat islands:

http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=5474.html

 

 

Research and images:

 

NASA website about using remote sensing to study the urban heat island effect; also includes the short educational video shown on this webpage:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/heat-island-sprawl.html

 

Yale website that discusses land surface properties, as well as the Landsat 8 thermal band and remote sensing of Chicago to determine changes in surface temperature due to surface reflectivity and vegetation:

http://surfaceheat.sites.yale.edu/

 

A pubmed.gov summary of a urban heat island study done in China:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15137654

 

NASA earth observatory website that shows images of the urban heat island effect in action, as well as detailed descriptions of each image and links to more images:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=47704

 

NASA article about the potential cooling effects white roofs could have in New York City:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77717&eocn=image&eoci=related_image