Category: Dissertation

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The Regional UHI

Its fun to share new results and updates on progress. Today is one of those days. I have been busy putting together the first UHI chapter of my dissertation and getting it ready for publication. This is a sneak peak.

The figure above shows the distribution of the urban and rural land cover classes in Orange, Durham and Wake Counties of North Carolina. These distributions were found by aggregating 20 land cover types from the NLCD 2011 data product into two groups: urban (white) and rural (dark gray). Open water appears black. Using GIS software and a thermal image of the study area taken from the Landsat-8 satellite, I calculated the average temperature of the two different land classes for a hot summer afternoon earlier this year (June 21, 2015, 3:52pm). The temperature of the rural land cover in this image is 2.1 degrees Celsius cooler than the urban areas. Additional results and a detailed analysis will appear in the chapter and publication.

I also posted this image to the maps section of my website. Check it out!

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Submitted

I submitted my first paper to an actual journal today. Feels a little like a celebration is in order. Feels a little like I should wait to celebrate until I hear back from the journal. I might hedge my bets because regardless of the outcome of the editorial process that is about to unfold, this point in time deserves a little moment of pause. I submitted an academic paper to an academic journal today.

The paper in question has been in progress for almost three years and is nothing resembling the paper I started writing. It represents a process of learning, collaboration and debate that I could not have predicted when I started. It says something different than I set out to say, something much smaller, but perhaps also larger than I have any experience to appreciate. It was hard to write. I had to step away from it many times to be renewed and reinvigorated to continue the work of creating it. It is not perfect.

But it was time to let it go. Let it go. And see if it has legs.

Today, I submitted my first paper to an academic journal.