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The San Juan , Puerto Rico , ATLAS mission was conducted during February 2004 to investigate
the impact of the urban landscape and growth on the climate of this tropical city. The flight
plan for the mission covers the San Juan metropolitan area, el Yunque National Forest,
Mayagüez, and the Arecibo Observatory, for a total of 25 flight lines. The central area
of San Juan was covered at 5 meters resolution in day and night flights. The remaining areas were
covered at 10 meters resolution in day flights. The flights were conducted between February
11th and February 16 th , 2004.
The Airborne Thermal and Land Applications Sensor (ATLAS) from NASA/Stennis operates in the visual
and IR bands. ATLAS is able to sense 15 multi-spectral radiation channels across the thermal, near-infrared,
and visible spectrums. The sensor also incorporates onboard, active calibration sources for all bands.
The sensor is flown in a Lear 23 jet plane and captures about a 30-degree swath width to each side of the aircraft.
The data must be corrected for geometric abnormalities due to flight path variations, and must be radiometrically
calibrated. These raw sensor scan lines are then reconstructed into a two-dimensional image data set. The sensor
also operates a 9-inch Zeiss camera for high-resolution photographic work. This ATLAS sensor has been used in other
field campaigns to investigate UHI in large continental cities. No major effort has been reported to investigate
the UHI in a major tropical city.
The Atlas Mission was completed with the direct collaboration of the NASA EPSCoR and NOAA-Crest
programs of the University of Puerto Rico , NASA's GSPC and MSFC, the City University of New York, the University
of New Mexico
Special acknowledgements to:
NASA JOHN C. STENNIS SPACE CENTER
& NOAA CREST |
News & Events
IMPORTANT – Dr. Jeff Luvall has announced that all the processing of the ATLAS sensor data has been finished, including mosaic files for El Yunque, San Juan, and Hato Rey (both for day and night flights). Data files will be made available upon specific requests. For sample images please visit the Data and Images section
June 12th - 16th 2006
6th International Conference on Urban Climate, Göteborg, Sweden. The most resent and upcoming modeling results on the climatic effects of low-land development in northern Puerto Rico will be presented at this international triennial event. For more information go to the conference webpage http://www.gvc.gu.se/icuc6/index.htm
January 29th – February 2nd 2006
86th AMS Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA. The UPRM Climate Modeling Group have made regular appearances at the AMS annual meetings, this year two aspects of the LCLU research team (modeling and remote sensing) were presented. Go to the Publications section for the extended abstract presented there.
April 24th-26th 2006
Caribbean Climate Symposium, Mayagüez, PR. The session Land Use and Public Policy will feature world class talks by leading experts in urban tropical climate and discussions on topics pertaining to urban development, climate impacts, policies, and mitigation strategies. http://www.cmg.uprm.edu/ccs/
June 12th - 16th 2006
6th International Conference on Urban Climate, Göteborg, Sweden. The most resent and upcoming modeling results on the climatic effects of low-land development in northern Puerto Rico will be presented at this international triennial event. For more information go to the conference webpage http://www.gvc.gu.se/icuc6/index.htm
The IAUC N
ewsletter (International Association for Urban Climate) has
published in the April issue the following article titled: "ATLAS Aids in Studying Tropical Urban Heat Islands".
Click here for the entire text on page 2.
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