Ken Davis stands in Penn State's meteorology department and asks a question that sounds simple: How hot is your neighborhood right now? The answer, he has discovered, matters far more than weather forecasters once believed. Davis, a professor of meteorology and atmospheric science, and his research group are transforming the way cities understand and respond to the local climates that shape daily life—from deadly heat waves to hidden emissions leaking from beneath the streets.
For decades, weather forecasts treated cities as uniform zones, dividing the atmosphere into grid cells several kilometers wide. This approach works fine for predicting rain across a region, but it misses something crucial: in cities, climate can shift dramatically from one city block to the next. A tree-lined neighborhood stays cooler than a pavement-heavy commercial district. A street lined with reflective white roofs cools differently than one with dark shingles. People experience these microclimates every day, but the tools designed to help cities manage extreme heat were blind to them.
This is where doctoral student Eliott Foust entered the picture. Working in Baltimore, Foust has been modeling how specific heat-mitigation strategies actually work at the neighborhood level. His findings surprised even experienced researchers. Reflective surfaces like white roofs and light-colored pavements cool daytime air temperatures most effectively, while added vegetation provides greater cooling benefits after dark. For a city like Baltimore—actively considering major investments in urban greening and cool roofs but unsure which interventions would deliver the greatest protection—this kind of precision data is invaluable.
The implications extend beyond comfort. Heat waves kill people, particularly the elderly and those without reliable air conditioning. Understanding which neighborhoods heat up most dangerously, and which interventions work best in which locations, is literally a public health question.
Another doctoral student, Jason Horne, is pushing this work even further. He studies whether weather forecasts can zoom in to resolutions of 100 meters or less—capturing single-block variations in temperature, humidity, and wind. Today's models typically miss these details entirely. The results will shape how agencies like the National Weather Service invest in next-generation forecasting tools, ensuring that future upgrades actually improve the predictions that affect public health, energy use, and urban planning.
But Davis's group works on invisible threats too. Alongside these neighborhood-scale studies, they measure greenhouse gas emissions—methane and nitrous oxide leaking from pipelines, natural gas appliances, and agricultural sources. The finding here is equally consequential: official inventories vastly underestimate methane escaping from oil and gas production, missing leaks by factors of two to four compared with what atmospheric measurements reveal.
This matters for policy. You cannot reduce what you cannot measure. Assistant research professor Zachary Barkley and postdoc Helen Kenion, using independent methods, found evidence that a significant fraction of urban methane leakage comes not from distribution pipelines but from homes and businesses themselves—from natural gas appliances and connections behind residential meters. That reframes the whole climate problem. Fixing underground pipes is crucial, but so is understanding why leakage occurs inside buildings and how to stop it.
In each case—whether mapping neighborhood heat or quantifying hidden emissions—Davis and his colleagues are doing the same essential work: providing sound data to guide decisions. Cities cannot fight climate change effectively without knowing exactly what they are fighting.