Final Project

Final project repo for INFO 523 - Fall 2023- Byte Busters

Urban Climate Patterns:Analysis of Urban Heat Islands

The main goal of this project is to delve into climatological data for three cities—Dallas, Denton, and Arlington—in and around the Dallas, TX region. The focus is on understanding and categorizing these cities based on the "Urban Heat Island" (UHI) scale.

In climatology, UHI denotes urban areas with higher temperatures compared to neighboring rural areas. This phenomenon arises due to the replacement of natural landscapes with structures that absorb and retain heat, forming what is commonly known as a "micro climate." Essentially, a city's infrastructure creates its own localized weather conditions.

By scrutinizing micro climate data for Dallas, a major urban hub, along with Denton and Arlington as suburban counterparts, we aim to establish a classification system reflecting different UHI intensities and assign corresponding labels to these cities. Furthermore, a temporal analysis will be conducted to compare and contrast various weather patterns associated with different UHI intensities.

This project seeks to enhance our understanding of how urbanization influences local climates, particularly in the context of the Dallas area, and contribute valuable insights into the classification and temporal patterns of Urban Heat Islands.

Repository Structure

• .github: GitHub-related files, including workflows, issue templates, and configurations in this directory.

• _extra: Explore code, notes, and other files used during experimentation. Note that the contents of this folder are not part of the final project output.

• _freeze: Access files generated during project rendering stored in this folder.

• data/: Discover data files or datasets used in the project.

  • README.md: Detailed information about the datasets can be found in this readme file.

• images: Access image files used in the project, such as illustrations, diagrams, or visual assets.

• .gitignore: View this file to see which files or directories are ignored by version control.

• README.md: This file serves as documentation for the project and is the first point of reference for information.

• _quarto.yml: Check this likely configuration file.

• about.qmd: Find team member information in this Quarto document.

• index.qmd: Access the approach, analysis, and results of the project in this Quarto document.

• presentation.qmd: This Quarto document contains slides for the project presentation.

• proposal.qmd: Explore the project proposal in this Quarto document.

• project-final.Rproj: This RStudio project file organizes R-related files and settings for the project.

Disclosure:

The dataset that we've gathered from National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/).