Identifying Surface Temperature Pattern of the City of Colombo

Abstract

The recent climatological studies carried out by several scholars from different disciplines have proved that the surface temperature of the urban areas has been elevated over the neighbouring vegetated areas. This trend can be experienced not only in industrialized countries but also in developing countries, induced by global warming. The trend of increasing temperature has extensively been felt by every single person of all regions in the world including the coldest region; Atlantic. Therefore, scientific studies on weather anomalies have been widely taken by various scholars in different fields. However, the technical constraints to examine the air temperature in urban areas especially in developing countries are very significant. For an instance, Colombo, the largest commercial city in Sri Lanka, Colombo has only one meteorological observatory which is located near the Southeast boundary of the city. This makes some restrictions to analyze the spatial pattern of temperature and the temperature levels in core area of the city. The present study attempts to examine the spatial pattern of surface temperature using remotely sensed data and examine the factors influencing the elevation of temperature in the city of Colombo.