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This paper presents a novel airborne remote sensing method using thermal imaging to directly georeference and calculate Earth surface temperature with a high spatiotemporal resolution. A tethered balloon is used to elevate an uncooled thermal camera in the field. When deployed, images with oblique view angles of the surrounding Earth surface are collected. Images recorded from a field environmental monitoring campaign in a northern Canadian mining facility are processed with open source software, and it is shown that they successfully represent the diurnal and spatial surface temperature variations within the facility. Furthermore, in comparison to MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite images, the approach results in a median absolute error of 0.64 K, with a bias and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 0.5 K and 5.45 K, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Vertical City Weather Generator (VCWG) is a computationally efficient urban microclimate model developed to predict temporal and vertical variation of temperature, wind speed, and specific humidity. It is composed of various sub models: a rural model, an urban microclimate model, and a building energy model. In a nearby rural site, a rural model is forced with weather data to solve a vertical diffusion equation to calculate vertical potential temperature profiles using a novel parameterization. The rural model also calculates a horizontal pressure gradient. The rural model outputs are then forced on a vertical diffusion urban microclimate model that solves vertical transport equations for momentum, temperature, and specific humidity. The urban microclimate model is also coupled to a building energy model using feedback interaction. The aerodynamic and thermal effects of urban elements and vegetation are considered in VCWG. To evaluate the VCWG model, a microclimate field campaign was held in Guelph, Canada, from 15 July 2018 to 5 September 2018. The meteorological measurements were carried out under a comprehensive set of wind directions, wind speeds, and thermal stability conditions in both the rural and the nearby urban areas. The model evaluation indicated that the VCWG predicted vertical profiles of meteorological variables in reasonable agreement with field measurements for selected days. In comparison to measurements, the overall model biases for potential temperature, wind speed, and specific humidity were within 5 %, 11 %, and 7 %, respectively. The performance of the model was further explored to investigate the effects of urban configurations such as plan and frontal area densities, varying levels of vegetation, seasonal variations, different climate zones, and time series analysis on the model predictions. The results obtained from the explorations were reasonably consistent with previous studies in the literature, justifying the reliability and computational efficiency of VCWG for operational urban development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the first environmental monitoring field campaign of a newly developed Tethered And Navigated Air Blimp (TANAB) system to investigate the microclimate over a complex terrain. The use of a tethered balloon in complex terrains such as mines and tailings ponds is novel and the focus of the present study. The TANAB system was fully developed and launched at a mine facility in northern Canada in May 2018. This study describes the key design features, the sensor payload onboard, and the observations made by the TANAB system. The system measured meteorological conditions including wind speed in three directions, temperature, relative humidity, and pressure over the first few tens of meters of the atmospheric boundary layer. The system also performed earth surface thermal imaging, or temperature mapping, of the underlying surface. The measurements were made at two primary locations in the facility: i) near a tailings pond and ii) in a mine pit. TANAB measured the dynamics of the atmosphere at different diurnal times (e.g. day versus night) and locations (near tailings pond versus inside the mine). Such dynamics include mean and turbulence statistics pertaining to flow momentum and energy, and they are crucial in the understanding of emission fluxes from the facility in future studies. In addition, TANAB can provide boundary conditions and validation datasets to support mesoscale dispersion modelling or Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations for various transport models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]