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Atlanta Urban Heat Island Study
Cities are increasingly experiencing health and environmental problems associated with urban heat islands (UHI). Heat islands can amplify extreme hot weather events and can speed up ground-level ozone formation, which can threaten public health and the environment. Heat islands increase air-conditioning demand, which results in elevated power plant emissions, including greenhouse gases and pollutants that form ground-level ozone. Increased energy demand for cooling purposes raises energy costs to communities and increases the risk of peak power overloads.
Project ATLANTA is a multi-year project being conducted by researchers at the Global Hydrology and Climate
Center
in Huntsville, Alabama, jointly managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA) is a co-lead organization for implementation of the results from the Atlanta Air
Quality Project. Their responsibilities include providing urban growth and
transportation data for the study.
Georgia Environmental Protection
Division (EPD) is a co-lead organization for implementation of the results from
the Atlanta Air Quality Project. Their responsibilities include testing and validation
of various UHI mitigation scenarios via air quality modeling and integration of updated
meteorological models to better model air quality over the Atlanta region.
Cool Communities is a lead organization for developing urban heat island mitigation measures (UHIMM)
and market assessment for UHI mitigation techniques and methods within the Atlanta
region.
US EPA Region 4 has a consulting/advisory role to provide focus, insight, and realistic input on the applicability and regulatory implementation of the model output and UHIMM developed as a part of this project.
Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) has a consultation/advisory and data provider role. They provide input on future
growth scenarios the Atlanta region.
The primary objectives are:
- To investigate and model the relationship between urban growth, land cover change, and the development of the urban heat island phenomenon
- To investigate and model the relationship between Atlanta urban growth and land cover change on the ozone air quality
- To model the overall effects of urban development in surface energy budget characteristics across urban landscapes