Surface temperatures in New York City: Geospatial data enables the accurate prediction of radiative heat transfer.

Despite decades of research seeking to derive the urban energy budget, the dynamics of thermal exchange in the densely constructed environment is not yet well understood. Using New York City as a study site, we present a novel hybrid experimental-computational approach for a better understanding of the radiative heat transfer in complex urban environments. The aim of this work is to contribute to the calculation of the urban energy budget, particularly the stored energy.