Sfîcă, L., Crețu, C.-Ș., Ichim, P., Hrițac, R. and Breabăn, I.-G. (2023) 'Surface urban heat island of Iași city (Romania) and its differences from in situ screen-level air temperature measurements', Sustainable Cities and Society, 94, 104568. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2023.104568.

The thermal city is not a single temperature field. Sfîcă and colleagues align MODIS land-surface temperature with screen-level air observations in Iași, making disagreement between two legitimate measurements the object of investigation rather than an error to suppress. Their analysis relates the geometry and intensity of the surface urban heat island to season, atmospheric circulation and impervious land cover. In spring and summer daylight conditions, surface and two-metre air temperatures can diverge by approximately 5–7°C; nighttime relationships differ. The study therefore interrupts a common slide from thermal imagery to claims about human exposure. Satellite surfaces, measured air and felt heat occupy different observational layers, each with its own spatial and temporal assumptions. The transferable operation is paired measurement: keep data streams distinct, register where they converge or diverge, and preserve the circumstances of observation. For walking-based comparative fieldwork, the mismatch is a research finding in its own right, especially across heterogeneous urban materials, slopes, shade structures and seasons.