Shea et al. (2026) Enhancing Our View from Above: A Downscaling Technique to Reveal Finer-Scale Urban Heat Patterns

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Remote Sensing
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-09-09
• Authors: Evan Shea, A. O. Benson, Tijmen Witvliet, Mark Fillo, Melissa R. McHale
• DOI: 10.3390/rs18183091

Research Groups

• Department of Geography, University of British Columbia
• Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia

Short Summary

This study evaluates the additional spatial variation introduced by downscaling land surface temperature (LST) from 30 to 10 m resolution using independently derived landscape characteristics. The findings suggest that this variation is consistent with known controls on urban thermal patterns.

Objective

• Evaluate whether downscaled LST introduces meaningful landscape-related thermal structure or model-generated variability

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Urban area of Kelowna, BC, Canada (10 m resolution)
• Temporal Scale: Summer season

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Open-source random forest model, Generalized Additive Models (GAMs)
• Data sources: Landsat 8/9 LST, Sentinel-2-derived predictors, high-resolution land cover characteristics

Main Results

• Additional thermal variation introduced by downscaling explained by land cover composition and landscape compositional heterogeneity (65.5% of variance)
• Canopy and impervious cover most strongly associated with added thermal variation

Contributions

• Provides an indirect means of evaluating the interpretability of downscaled LST products
• Offers a framework for assessing whether downscaled temperatures produce landscape-consistent thermal variability useful for urban analysis and planning

Funding

• Not specified in the provided text

Citation

@article{Shea2026Enhancing,
  author = {Shea, Evan and Benson, A. O. and Witvliet, Tijmen and Fillo, Mark and McHale, Melissa R.},
  title = {Enhancing Our View from Above: A Downscaling Technique to Reveal Finer-Scale Urban Heat Patterns},
  journal = {Remote Sensing},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.3390/rs18183091},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18183091}
}