Evaluation of LST and Urban Heat Island changes using MODIS LST data in some Iranian cities

One of the most important climatic changes in urban areas is temperature rise due to the land cover changes. The relative increase of temperature in urban areas respect to the surroundings lead to phenomenon called Urban Heat Island. The phenomenon causes serious effects in the urban climate so its monitoring is important. Heat island phenomenon of different dimensions can be verified that one of them is the surface temperature changes. In this study, land surface temperature changes over the past 12 years investigated. Land surface temperature has been calculated with two Day/Night and Generalized Split Window algorithms, using MODIS thermal bands. The land surface temperature changes in the last 12 years period in 14 cities with different climatic conditions has been studied in the day and night. Then urban area has been compared to surrounding suburbans. The results show that land surface temperature in urban area doesnt rise and even in some cases there is a decreasing trend. The effects of heat island occur in the evening as we expect. Furthermore day and night temperatures in most of these cities tend to close together and the temperature difference between cities and their suburbanes are declining based on observations.