NASA tailoring satellite data to help Prince George’s County mitigate climate impacts

GREENBELT, Md. — NASA is helping Prince George’s County identify its worst urban heat islands by tailoring satellite data to identify areas most prone to extreme heat where the most vulnerable people live.

The goal is to help the agency’s home community decide where to take action to help people endure extreme heat episodes, and a future of climate change.

“NASA Goddard is collaborating with Prince George's County to make our NASA Data our global data useful for local climate actions,” said NASA earth scientist Dr. Stephanie Schollaert Uz who is an applied science manager at the agency.

“We know that the climate projections from NASA Goddard are showing warming. Precipitation is becoming more variable and extreme. We started working with the county on their local climate information so that we can help bring that information to their decisions.”

“Areas within the inner beltway are very hot. They continue to be hot. They are getting hotter,” said Charles Braese, Prince George’s County Geographic Information Systems mapping project leader.

The data shows some heavily populated urban communities are 10-degrees hotter than greener sections of that county.

The difference can be life threatening, according to Mary Abe the Deputy Associate Director of the Prince George's County Department of the Environment’s Sustainability Division.

Abe will be using the data to make planning decisions and investments in climate mitigation projects.

“We're not stopping at that heat mapping. We’re laying equity over it. We're laying our tree canopy cover over it. We’re laying over our nuisance flooding issues. By the time you put all those layers together, the communities that need it the most become that area where there's a really a concentrated pattern,” Abe said.

“If I'm going to invest, and I'm going to prioritize who I invest first, this is where we do it.”

Abe pointed to reforestation and flood control projects in Fairmount Heights as examples of actions the county can take to mitigate urban heat island impacts as the climate warms.