As a part of the Cool Neighborhoods Initiative, the NYC Parks Department, Mayor’s Office of Resilience and NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene monitored street level temperature on a subset of city blocks in some of the neighborhoods with highest heat mortality risk during the summers of 2018 and 2019. The dataset includes hourly average values at approximately 475 locations in degrees Fahrenheit.

Temperature and precipitation projections for NYC reported by the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC).

The New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) started in 2009 and was codified in Local Law 42 of 2012 with a mandate to provide an authoritative and actionable source of scientific information on future climate change and its potential impacts.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change.

The Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI) shows neighborhoods whose residents are more at risk for dying during and immediately following extreme heat. It uses a statistical model to summarize the most important social and environmental factors that contribute to neighborhood heat risk. The factors included in the HVI are surface temperature, green space, access to home air conditioning, and the percentage of residents who are low-income or non-Latinx Black. Differences in these risk factors across neighborhoods are rooted in past and present racism. Neighborhoods are scored from 1 (lowest risk) to 5 (highest risk) by summing the following factors and assigning them into 5 groups (quintiles):

Median Household Income (American Community Survey 5 year estimate, 2016-2020)
Percent vegetative cover (trees, shrubs or grass) (2017 LiDAR, NYC DOITT)
Percent of population reported as Non-Hispanic Black on Census 2020
Average surface temperature Fahrenheit from ECOSSTRESS thermal imaging, August 27,2020
Percent of households reporting Air Conditioning access, Housing ad Vacancy Survey, 2017