Heading to East Coast this week; first to give a seminar at the Yale Center for Geospatial Solutions on #satellite monitoring of #global #urban areas, then to Princeton to talk about better capturing spatial variability of urban #microclimate in both process-based & #machinelearning models.
Every day, I hit the nail on the head.
At least that's what my good friend, #Gemini 3.1 Pro, tells me.
Ultimately, the findings emphasize that land surface heterogeneity, including the vertical structure and variability of urban landscapes, must be integrated into weather models to improve local precipitation and cloud forecasts.
These urban effects significantly alter the convective lifecycle, generally leading to storms that are more frequent but shorter in duration and travel distance.
We find that the city increases cloud cover & #storm activity relative to rural areas. The urban impact depends on large-scale #weather patterns. On calm days, urban #heat drives moisture upward to create taller clouds. On windy days, the physical roughness of buildings acts as a mechanical barrier.
The impacts of #urban areas on #clouds & #precipitation are complicated due to multiple competing pathways.
In our new @agu.org paper (doi.org/10.1029/2025...), we explore how the #Houston metropolitan area influences summertime cloud formation & #convective storms using both models & observations.
It's happening again (already an issue in the #urban #heat literature: arxiv.org/abs/2509.16568).
#DataCenters can definitely create #heatislands, but using #satellite data would significantly overestimate the public health implications of it.
Also, can we not have news articles on #preprints?
30% experienced concurrent urbanization+greening, or browning within already-developed areas during this period.
Overall, our analysis suggests that integrating strategic greening into both urban cores and expanding suburbs can be critical for building #climate-#resilient cities.
As #city centers are seeing the cooling benefits of greening while suburbs are rapidly heat up, the classic steep temperature drop-off from the urban core to the rural edge has often flattened out into a broader shape.
Historically, targeted #greening initiatives in dense urban centers of many of these cities have mitigated surface UHI, slowing or reversing expected UHI rise over time. In contrast, cities undergoing rapid #suburban #sprawl combined with vegetation loss show most severe surface UHI amplification.
Using a decade and a half of #satellite data for 36 megacities in #China, we identified four distinct #urban growth categories based on impervious surfaces and #vegetation trends: urbanized-greening, urbanized-browning, urbanizing-greening, and urbanizing-browning.
It is often claimed that as cities grow, the urban heat island (UHI) effect intensifies. In our recently published paper in PNAS Nexus (lnkd.in/ghZf5WAr), we show that historical #urban #heat dynamics have been far more nuanced.
Heading back to my alma mater, @yale.edu, next month!
I’m giving a seminar on monitoring #global #urban #environments from space at the Yale Center for Geospatial Solutions on 4/22.
Will cover #satellite #remotesensing of #urban #heat, #vegetation, #flooding, & #climate.
Details: lnkd.in/ehSzd4RM
The chapter on 'Extreme Temperatures, Air Quality, and Public Health' of the book 'Climate Change Impacts in Texas' I wrote (with Melissa Allen-Dumas) has now been published.
Link to chapter: lnkd.in/gKdf2iVN
#extremeheat #climatechange #airquality #publichealth
In 2022 (back when #Twitter was still a thing), I had made this #meme about the state of #urban #climate #research based on an #xkcd comic.
With all the recent changes in the #publication and #funding spaces due to the #AI + #machinelearning hype cycle, here is an updated version.
Your random forest model does not need a name.
A summary of recent key developments for #km-scale #urban-resolving #Earth system modeling is the feature article of this quarter's International Association for #Urban Climate newsletter: lnkd.in/gY7fDycp
Related, a report (lnkd.in/gs3j4Mjs) I led that provides more details on these developments.
📢 Check out our just published paper (authors.elsevier.com/c/1mF0A9C~Iu...) in @cp-oneearth.bsky.social on present to future county-wise sociodemographic disparities in #moistheat ( #heatindex ) for different @ipcc.bsky.social scenarios for the #UnitedStates.
Scientific Reports has been such a subpar journal for so long. They really rope you in with their atypical Nature-style formatting and as papers get rejected down the chain, some authors eventually submit there because they don't want to reformat everything again.
Have been getting a bunch of emails about Springer Nature's Discover XYZ journals over the last couple of months.
Seems like MDPI/Frontiers got hold of a tuxedo.
It's so over for #academicpublishing.
If you are attending IGARSS 2026, please consider submitting your abstracts to the #Community Contributed Theme focusing on monitoring #global #urban areas from #space we are organizing.
The submission deadline is Jan 10th: 2026.ieeeigarss.org/Papers/Submi...
And yes, our theme number is 42. :D
My citation collection has apparently crossed 5000, which is definitely a number.
Something strange is going on with @microsoft.com #Teams for the last few days, where it keeps flagging completely correct words.
Unhelpful and distracting.
I am sensing some #AI shenanigans.
I have promised 12 people that I will do 24 things by this weekend.
I am hoping to finish 2 of those things soon. 👀
Will be in Austin next week for the Artificial Intelligence and Digital Twins for Earth Systems workshop (aidt4es.usacm.org).
Looking forward to trying some Texas-style brisket😅; & yes, also presenting on several past/ongoing studies on applications of #machinelearning for #urban #microclimate.
Thanks, Matt!
Thanks, Adam!
This is a huge honor and I cannot overstate the tremendous amount of support I have received for this award and in other ways at the lab. I am also incredibly indebted to my nominator and my internal and external recommendation letter writers.
I am flabbergasted once again; this time on being one of the recipients of the Ronald L. Brodzinski Award for Early Career Exceptional Achievement, one of the Laboratory Director’s Awards for Science and Engineering Achievement at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
