Abstract: Kano is the largest city in Northern Nigeria with an estimated population of over 4 million inhabitants, the city is also an economic hub of Northern Nigeria. The activities within a city like Kano are known to change landscape structures and local climate activities. Urban forests are often planned by city planners to mitigate the alteration of microclimate arising from anthropogenic activities. Accurate and timely information is therefore needed on the microclimate of cities for the major purpose of improving the quality of life of urban residents. Remote sensing provides a straightforward and consistent way to determine thermal differences between distinct microclimate habitats arising from anthropogenic activities. This study used Satellite Remote Sensing to assess the varying microclimate temperatures occasioned by anthropogenic activities within the Kano metropolis. Kano City was divided into three strata, namely densely populated, sparsely populated, and urban forest. Land Surface Temperature was extracted from the 250 m Moderate Resolution Imagine Spectroradiometer’s (MODIS) satellite images using JavaScript in the Google Earth Engine Platform. The extracted LST datasets were from March 2000 to September 2020. The datasets were analysed using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA). Results showed that the densely populated areas had higher temperature ranges of 36.21°C, while the sparsely populated strata and the urban forested areas had 35.2°C and 34.4°C respectively. The study shows the impact of urban forestry in the reduction of microclimate heat and climate change mitigations. Monitoring the urban heat island in three areas of Kano City, an average of 4.88°C difference in temperatures between the urban forested areas and the densely populated areas of the city can be ascribed to the substitution of vegetation with buildings and hard surfaces and anthropogenic-induced heat generations.
Key words: Climate change, Land surface temperature, Microclimate, Satellite remote sensing, Urban forest.