In the Toledo area, Dr. C and schools in the area focused on studying artificial turf versus grass soccer and football fields. Artificial turf was much warmer than natural grass. This is combining the GLOBE Urban Heat Island Field Study with research by Vasco Mantas from the University of Coimbra in Portugal and George Xian from the USGS Eros Data Center and the AREN Project with Andy Henry and Geoff Bland.
University of Toledo students using the AREN TerraROVER on the UT football field.
You can see that the artificial turf of the football field (called the Glass Bowl) and the soccer field are warmer than the grassy areas. In fact, you can see in the TerraROVER data that the concrete and asphalt near the fields was cooler. Surface temperature gathered by students in my classes using infrared thermometers, showed the same thing.
Surface temperatures taken at the University of Toledo using the GLOBE protocol. The artificial turf was about 28 C while the concrete and asphalt parking lots and grassy areas are near 18 C.
Data from the TerraROVER. You can see that the artificial turf is about 10 C warmer than the grass and parking lots surrounding it. If you look closely, the white parts of the football field are cooler than the green areas.
Information about the AREN Project can be found here.
https://www.globe.gov/web/aren-project
And, this project was funded by NASA through GLOBE Mission EARTH,
https://www.globe.gov/web/mission-earth
