Using Long Short-Term Memory and Internet of Things for localized surface temperature forecasting in an urban environment

The rising temperature is one of the key indicators of a warming climate, and it can cause extensive stress to biological systems as well as built structures. Due to the heat island effect, it is most severe in urban environments compared to other landscapes due to the decrease in vegetation associated with a dense human-built environment. It is essential to adequately monitor the local temperature dynamics to mitigate risks associated with increasing temperatures, which can include short term strategy to protect people and animals, to long term strategy to how to build a new structure and cope with extreme events. Observed temperature is also a very important input for atmospheric models, and accurate data can lead to better future forecasts. Ambient temperature collected at ground level can have a higher variability when compared to regional weather forecasts, which fail to capture the local dynamics. There remains a clear need for an accurate air temperature prediction at the sub-urban scale at high temporal and spatial resolution. This research proposed a framework based on Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) deep learning network to generate day-ahead hourly temperature forecast with high spatial resolution. A case study is shown which uses historical in-situ observations and Internet of Things (IoT) observations for New York City, USA. By leveraging the historical air temperature data from in-situ observations, the LSTM model can be exposed to more historical patterns that might not be present in the IoT observations. Meanwhile, by using IoT observations, the spatial resolution of air temperature predictions is significantly improved.