The variation of air and surface temperatures in London within a 1km grid using vehicle-transect and ASTER data

Urbanisation can modify the local climate, increasing the temperature of cities compared to rural areas. This phenomenon is known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI), and this paper introduces a methodology to investigate the spatial variability of air and surface temperatures across London. In particular, this study aims to investigate if a widely used spatial resolution (1 km) is appropriate for heat-related health risk studies. Data from vehicle-transect and ASTER thermal images were overlaid on a reference grid of 1 km, used by UHI simulation models. The results showed higher variability of air temperature within some specific modelled grid cells in the city centre, while surface temperatures presented higher variability in the London borders. This investigation suggests that LST has larger variation levels and more grid cells with sub-grid variation above 1°C compared to air temperature measurements.