Going Mobile to Address Emerging Climate Equity Needs in the Heterogeneous Urban Environment

Abstract

The Brookhaven National Laboratory Center for Multiscale Applied Sensing (CMAS) aims to address environmental equity needs in the context of a changing climate. As a first step toward this goal, the center developed a one-of-a-kind observatory tailored to the study of highly heterogeneous urban environments. This article describes the features of the mobile observatory that enable its rapid deployment either on or off the power grid, as well as its instrument payload. Beyond its unique design, the observatory optimizes data collection within the obstacle-laden urban environment using a new smart sampling paradigm. This setup facilitated the collection of previously poorly documented environmental properties, including wind profiles throughout the atmospheric column. The mobile observatory captured unique observations during its first few intensive observation periods. Vertical air motion and infrared temperature measurements collected along the faces of the supertall One Vanderbilt skyscraper in Manhattan, NY, reveal how solar and anthropogenic heating affect wind flow and thus the venting of heat, pollution, and contaminants in urban street canyons. Also, air temperature measurements collected during travel along a 150-km transect between Upton and Manhattan, NY, offer a high-resolution view of the urban heat island and reveal that temperature disparities also exist within the city across different neighborhoods. Ultimately, the datasets collected by CMAS are poised to help guide equitable urban planning by highlighting existing disparities and characterizing the impact of urban features on the urban microclimate with the goal of improving human comfort.