Understanding Urban Heat Islands

What is an Urban Heat Island?

An urban heat island (UHI) is a metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities and the built environment.

Surfaces like concrete, asphalt and buildings absorb and re-emit heat, while reduced vegetation limits natural cooling through evapotranspiration. The effect is most pronounced at night, when urban materials slowly release stored heat.

UHIs can raise city temperatures by 1–3°C on average — and by as much as 12°C during calm, clear evenings.

This dashboard explores microclimate variation across the Natural History Museum grounds, comparing sensors in different settings — from shaded olive groves to exposed hillsides — to understand how local land cover and vegetation influence temperature at a hyperlocal scale.

Sensor Network

The NHM gardens are equipped with 24 soil temperature sensors recording data every 30 seconds at 15 cm depth.

Sensors are placed across contrasting micro-habitats to capture how land cover, shade, and proximity to hard surfaces influence soil temperature.

Key locations:

• Courtyard olive grove
• Wood pile hill (exposed)
• 10 cm, 15 cm, and 20 cm from concrete paths
• Bare soil vs ivy-covered ground

All data is ingested and stored using AWS cloud infrastructure , enabling scalable analysis of millions of readings.