Green Roofs and the Urban Heat Island Effect

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Green Roofs and the Urban Heat Island Effect

• Jason Jayanty
• Dr. Stuart Gaffin
• Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig

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What Are Green Roofs?

• Green Roofs are roofs covered by vegetation
• Two types of Green Roofs
• Intensive Heavy, expensive capable of
  supporting large plants
• Extensive Light-weight patches of shrubbery
• Green Roofs are advantageous for
• Keeping buildings cooler in the summer and warmer
  in the winter
• Protecting a city from combined sewage overflow
  during storms
• Extend the life of a roof

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Extensive Green Roof
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Intensive Green Roof
(photo by Don Carlson, Carlson Architects)
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The Urban Heat Island Effect

• The Urban Heat Island Effect refers to the fact
  that cities can be up to 5-7º C hotter than the
  surrounding rural areas
• This usually happens because
• Anthropogenic heat (Man-Made)
• Concrete can absorb a lot of heat
• Tall buildings increase overall surface area for
  heat absorption
• Urban Canyon effect

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Why New York City?

• New York City has 5 times the area of Central
  Park in roof space (Gaffin et al, 2004)
• If even half of these roofs were made green, It
  would have significant environmental effects.
  (Rosenzweig et al, 2005)

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My Objective

• My objective is to confirm LANDSAT surface
  temperature data at key sites of interest around
  New York City.
• Measure differences between green roofs and black
  roofs
• Measure how quickly surfaces heat up in New York

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Observations for July 11, 2005
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Interesting Results So Far
Morningside Park
113th Street and Morningside
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113th And Morningside Data
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Uris Hall Data
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Further Research

• Get surface and air measurements over the course
  of a day
• Expand measurements of surface and air
  temperatures to other regions of high interest