Multitemporal Landsat data for urban heat island assessment and classification of local climate zones

The urban heat island is the most analyzed feature in urban climatology and an important application in urban remote sensing. A common approach is the application of thermal-infrared radiometers for inner urban temperature characterization, although several problems remain unsolved. Another approach is the direct determination of thermal surface properties and thematic classification using multitemporal thermal imagery. In this study multitemporal Landsat data is correlated with a long-term urban heat island pattern with R of up to 0.76. Furthermore, parameters of the annual cycle in surface temperatures at acquisition time are fitted and evaluated for different land use classes. The classes show significantly different probability density functions in the annual cycle parameters which therefore can be expected to be suitable features for their classification.