NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) will deploy two novel technologies augmenting HEAT28/LA28 to demonstrate NASA’s advancement of practical decision support: Digital Twins (DT) and New Observing Systems (NOS). NASA DT technologies, frameworks, and know how will extend urban heat models to support hindcasting, nowcasting, forecasting, downsampling, and counterfactual/what-if capabilities to provide greater decision support (for both operations and planning) to key stakeholders such as LA28, ShadeLA, infrastructure providers (e.g. Southern California Edison (SCE)), insurance (e.g. Cotality), and others. NASA NOS technologies will build on the DT capabilities to direct observations focused on: (1) best predictors of data for decision makers (e.g. 96 hours in advance what will be the temperature at the SoFi event location on 28th July 2028 at 2pm) and (2) resolving quantities around specific thresholds that drive decision making (e.g. will there be a heat event defined as 4 hours over 32 degrees Celsius air temperature). The DT will provide enhanced decision support capabilities for stakeholders and DT+NOS will advance these capabilities even more by directing sensing in support of this decision-making.
The DT+NOS pairing has widespread applicability to many science and EA domains beyond Urban Heat, including but not limited to Air Quality, Wildfires, Algal Blooms, Volcanoes, and beyond. Infusion of DT+NOS into HEAT28 will showcase and document the value of these ESTO technologies – leading the way for infusion into many additional areas.
LA28 DT+NOS will highlight the non-standard use of commercial assets for NASA efforts. Highlighting the modest cost and efficacy of this rapidly growing sector will lead to increased leveraging of such assets for future NASA efforts.