Articles | Volume 17, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2147-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2147-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Data description article
| 
21 May 2025
Data description article |
| 21 May 2025
| 21 May 2025
U-Surf: a global 1 km spatially continuous urban surface property dataset for kilometer-scale urban-resolving Earth system modeling
Yifan Cheng
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
Atmospheric, Climate, and Earth Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Keith Oleson
Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
Matthias Demuzere
B-Kode VOF, Ghent, Belgium
Xiaoping Liu
Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Yangzi Che
Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Yuyu Zhou
Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, 999077, Hong Kong SAR, China
Xinchang “Cathy” Li
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
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Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17727–17741, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17727-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17727-2021, 2021
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Short summary
The absence of globally consistent and spatially continuous urban surface input has long hindered large-scale high-resolution urban climate modeling. Using remote sensing, cloud computing, and machine learning, we developed U-Surf, a 1 km dataset providing key urban surface properties worldwide. U-Surf enhances urban representation across scales and supports kilometer-scale urban-resolving Earth system modeling unprecedentedly, with broader applications in urban studies and beyond.
The absence of globally consistent and spatially continuous urban surface input has long...
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