The “Heat Island” is expanding for many big cities in the world, and the phenomenon is analyzed in terms of @local/regional energy balance, economic activities, climatic aspect and so on. It is discussed as the site specific issue5), however it is occurring in many places on a global scale with different intensity. It seems to be important to analyze the heat island phenomenon among cities in different geographic locations to understand its mechanism and forecast its progress, because there exist different stages of the heat island and they are growing at different development stages.
The Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo has been receiving NASA’s satellite “TERRA/MODIS” data starting from May, 2001 in order to monitor the environment and disaster parameters around the East Asia6). A project was launched to analyze and assess the environment and disasters that occurred in the cities in Asia. In order to acquire TERRA data for expanded continental-scale i.e. into the Southeast Asian sub-region, the IIS has provided Asian Center for Research on Remote Sensing, AIT one identical MODIS receiving facility. That station is managed by the Joint Management Committee composing of ACRoRS (AIT), Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (Thailand).
In this study, the comparison of the heat island intensity for cities in East Asia and different stages of economic development in different geographic locations is made.
Data used
In this study, five cities are picked up for analyzing the heat environment or the so-called heat island. The cities are: Tokyo (Japan), Seoul (South Korea), Pyongyang (North Korea), Beijing and Shanghai (China), those are within the coverage of the ground station of University of Tokyo, Komaba, Tokyo. Table-1 shows the list of data used in this study. In order to obtain cloud free data, the date for summer data and winter
Table-1 List of Data used
| City | Summer/Winter | Day/Night | Date | Local Time | G M T |
| Tokyo | Summer | Day | 2001/07/24 | 10:36 | 01:36 |
| Night | 2001/06/02 | 22:04 | 13:04 |
| Winter | Day | 2001/11/23 | 11:08 | 02:08 |
| Night | 2001/11/23 | 22:11 | 13:11 |
| Seoul | Summer | Day | 2001/08/27 | 11:59 | 02:59 |
| Night | 2001/08/27 | 23:03 | 14:03 |
| Winter | Day | 2001/11/19 | 11:32 | 02:32 |
| Night | 2001/11/19 | 22:35 | 13:35 |
| Pyongyang | Summer | Day | 2001/08/27 | 11:59 | 02:59 |
| Night | 2001/08/22 | 22:45 | 13:45 |
| Winter | Day | 2001/11/19 | 11:32 | 02:32 |
| Night | 2001/11/19 | 22:35 | 13:35 |
| Peking | Summer | Day | 2001/08/21 | 11:33 | 03:33 |
| Night | 2001/08/20 | 21:57 | 13:57 |
| Winter | Day | 2001/11/20 | 11:13 | 03:13 |
| Night | 2001/11/20 | 22:17 | 14:17 |
| Shanghai | Summer | Day | 2001/07/21 | 10:42 | 02:42 |
| Night | 2001/0917 | 22:19 | 14:19 |
| Winter | Day | 2001/10/30 | 10:56 | 02:56 |
| Night | 2001/10/30 | 22:00 | 14:00 |