As the first chills of autumn erase the memories of this summer's heat wave, three cities are starting to apply lessons from sweltering portraits painted by a NASA-led team of Earth scientists. Salt Lake City is figuring out how to keep the air clean for the 2002 Summer Olympics, and Baton Rouge and Sacramento are planning where to plant trees. Sacramento displays a little of everything, from blistering railyards to the cool California River, in visible and thermal infrared images.
Detailed images are available below.
Several other U.S. cities participated through ground-based and satellite observations. Atlanta was studied in May 1997. The overall goal of this project is finding ways to cool the city and thereby reduce ozone pollution problems. We want to get the data out to city planners as soon as possible. The raw data sets will be about 2 to 3 gigabytes per city.