School Notes: School of the Environment
September/October 2026

Taking a city’s “pulse”

For decades, urban scientists have tracked how cities grow by measuring population counts, land cover, and GDP—static snapshots taken once a year, sometimes less. In a new study, researchers at the Yale School of the Environment argue that approach inadequately captures the dynamic nature of urbanization.

Published in PNAS, the study introduces the concept of the Urban Pulse: a framework that treats urbanization not as an outcome to be measured, but as a dynamic process to be continuously monitored, like a physician monitoring a patient’s heart with an electrocardiogram. “Treating a city as a static snapshot is akin to diagnosing a patient based on a single heartbeat,” said Karen Seto, the Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science at YSE and study coauthor. “The Urban Pulse framework changes how we understand, monitor, and manage the world’s cities.”

Using dense time-series data from NASA’s Landsat and the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites, the research team developed a metric to track construction activity and intensity at the neighborhood level. This method allows researchers to link urban processes to socioenvironmental outcomes and can provide critical early warning signals for urban stress.

Americans say climate change is raising their bills

A new survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication finds that two-thirds of registered voters think global warming is affecting the cost of living in the United States, a view shared across the political spectrum. Energy is the cost Americans feel most acutely: a quarter of voters point to energy costs as the expense most impacted by global warming, more than food, transportation, or insurance. Looking specifically at utilities, 66 percent of registered voters think global warming is causing their home utility bills to rise. The findings suggest energy affordability could be a unifying entry point for climate conversations, offering a way to discuss climate change that resonates regardless of political affiliation.