#urban heat island effect

[reasonsforhope]

"With “green corridors” that mimic the natural forest, the Colombian city is driving down temperatures — and could become five degrees cooler over the next few decades.

In the face of a rapidly heating planet, the City of Eternal Spring — nicknamed so thanks to its year-round temperate climate — has found a way to keep its cool.

Previously, Medellín had undergone years of rapid urban expansion, which led to a severe urban heat island effect — raising temperatures in the city to significantly higher than in the surrounding suburban and rural areas. Roads and other concrete infrastructure absorb and maintain the sun’s heat for much longer than green infrastructure.

“Medellín grew at the expense of green spaces and vegetation,” says Pilar Vargas, a forest engineer working for City Hall. “We built and built and built. There wasn’t a lot of thought about the impact on the climate. It became obvious that had to change.”

Efforts began in 2016 under Medellín’s then mayor, Federico Gutiérrez (who, after completing one term in 2019, was re-elected at the end of 2023). The city launched a new approach to its urban development — one that focused on people and plants.

The $16.3 million initiative led to the creation of 30 Green Corridors along the city’s roads and waterways, improving or producing more than 70 hectares of green space, which includes 20 kilometers of shaded routes with cycle lanes and pedestrian paths.

These plant and tree-filled spaces — which connect all sorts of green areas such as the curb strips, squares, parks, vertical gardens, sidewalks, and even some of the seven hills that surround the city — produce fresh, cooling air in the face of urban heat. The corridors are also designed to mimic a natural forest with levels of low, medium and high plants, including native and tropical plants, bamboo grasses and palm trees.

Heat-trapping infrastructure like metro stations and bridges has also been greened as part of the project and government buildings have been adorned with green roofs and vertical gardens to beat the heat. The first of those was installed at Medellín’s City Hall, where nearly 100,000 plants and 12 species span the 1,810 square meter surface.

“It’s like urban acupuncture,” says Paula Zapata, advisor for Medellín at C40 Cities, a global network of about 100 of the world’s leading mayors. “The city is making these small interventions that together act to make a big impact.”

At the launch of the project, 120,000 individual plants and 12,500 trees were added to roads and parks across the city. By 2021, the figure had reached 2.5 million plants and 880,000 trees. Each has been carefully chosen to maximize their impact.

“The technical team thought a lot about the species used. They selected endemic ones that have a functional use,” explains Zapata.

The 72 species of plants and trees selected provide food for wildlife, help biodiversity to spread and fight air pollution. A study, for example, identified Mangifera indica as the best among six plant species found in Medellín at absorbing PM2.5 pollution — particulate matter that can cause asthma, bronchitis and heart disease — and surviving in polluted areas due to its “biochemical and biological mechanisms.”

And the urban planting continues to this day.

The groundwork is carried out by 150 citizen-gardeners like Pineda, who come from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds, with the support of 15 specialized forest engineers. Pineda is now the leader of a team of seven other gardeners who attend to corridors all across the city, shifting depending on the current priorities...

“I’m completely in favor of the corridors,” says [Victoria Perez, another citizen-gardener], who grew up in a poor suburb in the city of 2.5 million people. “It really improves the quality of life here.”

Wilmar Jesus, a 48-year-old Afro-Colombian farmer on his first day of the job, is pleased about the project’s possibilities for his own future. “I want to learn more and become better,” he says. “This gives me the opportunity to advance myself.”

The project’s wider impacts are like a breath of fresh air. Medellín’s temperatures fell by 2°C in the first three years of the program, and officials expect a further decrease of 4 to 5C over the next few decades, even taking into account climate change. In turn, City Hall says this will minimize the need for energy-intensive air conditioning...

In addition, the project has had a significant impact on air pollution. Between 2016 and 2019, the level of PM2.5 fell significantly, and in turn the city’s morbidity rate from acute respiratory infections decreased from 159.8 to 95.3 per 1,000 people [Note: That means the city's rate of people getting sick with lung/throat/respiratory infections.]

There’s also been a 34.6 percent rise in cycling in the city, likely due to the new bike paths built for the project, and biodiversity studies show that wildlife is coming back — one sample of five Green Corridors identified 30 different species of butterfly.

Other cities are already taking note. Bogotá and Barranquilla have adopted similar plans, among other Colombian cities, and last year São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in South America, began expanding its corridors after launching them in 2022.

“For sure, Green Corridors could work in many other places,” says Zapata."

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, March 4, 2024

#colombia #brazil #urban #urban landscape #urban planning #cities #civil engineering #green architecture #green spaces #urban heat #urban heat island effect #weather #meteorology #global warming #climate change #climate hope #climate optimism #climate emergency #climate action #environment #environmental news #city architecture #bicycling #native plants #biodiversity #good news #hope #solarpunk #ecopunk #hopepunk

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

In Los Angeles, California, where temperatures tend to stay warm year-round, you can feel a significant difference in heat when you’re along the coast or outside the city versus when you’re in denser parts of the city. This phenomenon, known as the urban heat island effect, can make daytime temperatures in densely packed areas 1°F to 7°F warmer than nearby areas. Los Angeles is working to combat this by applying a solar-reflecting paint on 1 million square feet of roads in the city.

The GAF Cool Community Project, an initiative by roofing and waterproofing manufacturer GAF, has painted roads, parking lots, and even playgrounds in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacoima with the solar-reflective, epoxy acrylic paint. GAF partnered with local organizations, governments and scientists for the project.

“Pacoima is one of the hottest parts of L.A. County and hasn’t gotten the kind of investment like a lot of other communities,” Jeff Terry, vice president for corporate social responsibility and sustainability at GAF, said, as reported by Bloomberg. “One of the challenges with urban heating is that it doesn’t stop at night. Hopefully we’re going to make this place a little bit more livable for the residents.”

In Pacoima, asphalt temperatures may reach over 140°F. But one study from 2020 noted that reflective coatings reduced surface temperatures on Los Angeles streets by over 10°C (50°F). Fast Company reported that the Pacoima surface temperatures have already declined by 10° to 12° with the new reflecting coatings.

#Los Angeles #solar-reflecting paint #urban heat island effect

[wordforests]

#environment #human ecology #climate change #infrastructure #bbc #trees #urban heat island #urban heat island effect

[bumblebeeappletree]

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateTerra.

With extreme heat waves in Europe, Asia, the United States and beyond, it’s clear climate change is making summers more dangerous and deadly. Urban areas are feeling the worst effects; a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. 2022 saw high temperatures in Kansas, Spain, Portugal, England (especially London), and India. But even within cities, the warming is not distributed evenly. During the Pacific Northwest heat dome of 2021, the region's most extreme heat wave ever, this temperature difference reached a staggering 25°F between neighborhoods in Portland, OR. And new research is illuminating how a century of racist housing policies known as redlining have contributed to this often deadly inequality.

The 2022 heat waves are not single events. They are another data point during years of escalating extreme weather. Previously, the 2019 European heat wave, the 1980 US heat wave, 1995 Chicago heat wave and many more are part of this trend.

In this episode we are going to dive into this unjust history of housing discrimination and see what it can teach us about how to keep cities cooler and save lives. We’ll visit Richmond, Virginia and Portland, Oregon to understand the problem and solutions. Innovative solutions are being carried out at the Science Museum of Virginia and by the Portland organization, Friends of Trees.

Weathered is a show hosted by weather expert Maiya May and produced by Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.

Subscribe to PBS Terra so you never miss an episode! https://bit.ly/3mOfd77

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#pbs Terra #solarpunk #heat islands #cities #heat wave #global heating #global warming #climate chaos #climate crisis #climate change #urban areas #urban heat #urban heat island #heat island effect #Maiya May #Youtube

[english-history-trip]

In 2020, for the first time since being laid in 1772, a section of a King’s College lawn the size of just half a football pitch was not mown. Instead, it was transformed into a colourful wildflower meadow filled with poppies, cornflowers and oxeye daisies.

[Researcher Dr Cicely Marshall] found that as well as being a glorious sight, the meadow had boosted biodiversity and was more resilient than lawn to our changing climate. The results are published today in the journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence. Despite its size, the wildflower meadow supported three times more species of plants, spiders and bugs than the remaining lawn - including 14 species with conservation designations, compared with six in the lawn.

The meadow was found to have another climate benefit: it reflected 25% more sunlight than the lawn, helping to counteract what’s known as the ‘urban heat island’ effect. Cities tend to heat up more than rural areas, so reflecting more sunlight can have a cooling effect - useful in our increasingly hot summers. “Cambridge has become more prone to drought, and last summer most of the College’s fine lawns died. It’s really expensive to maintain these lawns, which have to be re-sown if they die off. But the meadow just looked after itself,” says Marshall.

#Down With Lawns #the article has a bunch more including tips on starting your own meadow #environmental news

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

So in my climate change module this year I set my students the task of writing a journal article-formatted piece about a climate change-induced/exacerbated social issue of their choice. For example! The urban heat island effect is a known issue and going to get worse with rising temperatures - but, thanks to racist and classist urban investment and planning (and historical red lining policies), it'll disproportionately affect people of colour and the working class because those neighbourhoods have fewer green spaces to absorb heat. That sort of thing.

Anyway, today my students were telling me how they found it. One told me she hated it, because it made her so angry with the world.

"I ended up researching feminism!" she told me indignantly. "The patriarchy is awful! And don't get me started on colloquialism!"

Me: "... colloquialism?"

Her: "... you know, like."

Me: "..."

Her: "What we did to the rest of the world."

Me: "..."

Me: "..."

Me: "COLONIALISM"

Her: "YES"

Anyway I haven't looked at it yet but I will be delighted if she's accidentally written a biting assessment of idioms

#the professional world of careers and tasks

[amtrak-official]

Literally every problem people have with cities no matter how petty is something that can be fixed in one way or another

Too much Grey? Paint the buildings

Not enough nature? Street trees and pocket parks are easy to install

Light Pollution? Cover street lamps and use energy efficient bulbs to power them

Too much Concrete? Brick Sidewalks are easy to install and require fewer repairs, additionally infill on parking lots significantly reduces the amount of concrete and creates usable space

High Rents? Land use reform and loosening of zoning restrictions was proven to work in Minneapolis

Too many people? The parks provide a calm escape from urban life and there are usually less trafficked parts of cities

Too noisy? Traffic Calming measures are incredibly effective in reducing sounds

Lack of Food availability? Build a community Garden

Crime? Stop over policing low income communities

Hard to get around and have bad traffic? Metros exist for a reason

Urban heat island effect? Plant some trees and build bike lanes to reduce car usage

Obviously none of these can instantly solve people's problems and these aren't the only solutions to these problems. But the point of this is just to show how our cities problems no matter how minor can be fixed or at least improved

#urbanism

[southernsolarpunk]

I’ve been lightly researching the environmental impact of skyscrapers/high rises compared to low-rise buildings, and it seems low-rise is better. While high-rise buildings do have more population density, the environmental cost of both building and maintaining them heavily outweighs the benefits. And then they typically contribute to the urban heat island effect more than low-rise buildings. I want to go into this more but more research is needed. But if you’re a solarpunk artist maybe keep this in mind when drawing cities.

#solarpunk #urban planning

[crippled-peeper]

planting trees in densely urban areas will lower the urban heat-island effect on the ground and reduce the number of heat-related illnesses and deaths over time.

trees also help pull pollution from the atmosphere and fix it into their wood and bark. did you know trees life spans can be shortened by being closer to roads/polluted air? they serve us and die for us and we don’t even notice.

trees protect us and we should really respect them more as the globe warms. In the USA, if you’re wealthy/lucky you will have many trees in your neighborhood. If you are in a low-income area they are rarer. this directly correlates to heat deaths.

so if you see a tree dying from drought in your neighborhood…. maybe give it a hand if you can. that tree may very much pay your community back years down the line

#trees #arbor #cultivation #USA

[melyzard]

The initiative comes on the heels of a series of dangerous heat waves in the U.S. affecting more than 16 million Americans. Painting streets may not be the silver bullet that fixes the urban heat island effect, but in Pacoima, it has already cooled the surface by about 10 to 12 degrees, highlighting the potential for a simple yet effective upgrade.

#climate change #hope #environmentalism #science #solarpunk #it wasnt all grey or white paint #they did murals too! #some places actually cooled up to 30 degrees! #invisible shade

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

In a week when parts of the state are getting triple-digit temperatures and weather officials urge Texans to stay cool and hydrated, Gov. Greg Abbott gave final approval to a law that will eliminate local rules mandating water breaks for construction workers.

House Bill 2127 was passed by the Texas Legislature during this year’s regular legislative session. Abbott signed it Tuesday. It will go into effect on Sept. 1.

Supporters of the law have said it will eliminate a patchwork of local ordinances across the state that bog down businesses. The law’s scope is broad but ordinances that establish minimum breaks in the workplace are one of the explicit targets. The law will nullify ordinances enacted by Austin in 2010 and Dallas in 2015 that established 10-minute breaks every four hours so that construction workers can drink water and protect themselves from the sun. It also prevents other cities from passing such rules in the future. San Antonio has been considering a similar ordinance.

Texas is the state where the most workers die from high temperatures, government data shows. At least 42 workers died in Texas between 2011 and 2021 from environmental heat exposure, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Workers’ unions claim this data doesn’t fully reflect the magnitude of the problem because heat-related deaths are often recorded under a different primary cause of injury.

This problem particularly affects Latinos because they represent six out of every 10 construction workers, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Unions expect heat-related deaths to go up if mandated water breaks go away.

“Construction is a deadly industry. Whatever the minimum protection is, it can save a life. We are talking about a human right,” said Ana Gonzalez, deputy director of policy and politics at the Texas AFL-CIO. “We will see more deaths, especially in Texas’ high temperatures.”

The National Weather Service is forecasting highs over 100 degrees in several Texas cities for at least the next seven days.

Heat waves are extreme weather events, often more dangerous than tornadoes, severe thunderstorms or floods. High temperatures kill people, and not just in the workplace. Last year, there were 279 heat-related deaths in Texas, based on data analysis by The Texas Tribune.

In 2022, Texas saw its second-hottest summer on record, and an extreme drought swept the state. This summer is not expected to be as hot as the weather pattern known as La Niña eases, which typically brings dry conditions to Texas, state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said.

Still, climate change amplifies the effects of heat waves, said Hosmay Lopez, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who studies heat waves. Climate change causes heat waves to stretch for longer periods of time, reach higher temperatures and occur more often than they would otherwise. The problem is especially pronounced in dry areas of the Southwest due to a lack of vegetation and soil moisture, which in wetter regions produces a cooling effect through evaporation.

At the same time, he added, increased urbanization across the U.S. — especially in places like Texas where cities are expanding — makes more people vulnerable to health dangers from extreme heat due to the “urban island” effect. Essentially, the combination of concrete and buildings, plus a lack of green spaces causes ground-level heat to radiate, increasing the temperature in cities.

“The impact of climate change on extreme heat is not only enhanced [by weather events] but also enhanced through social dynamics as well,” Lopez said.

HB 2127, introduced by state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, is perhaps Texas Republicans’ most aggressive attempt to curb progressive policies in the state’s largest, liberal-leaning cities. Under the new law, local governments would be unable to create rules that go beyond what state law dictates in broad areas like labor, agriculture, business and natural resources.

Beyond eliminating mandated water breaks for construction workers, opponents of the legislation argue that it will also make it more difficult for cities and counties to protect tenants facing eviction or to combat predatory lending, excessive noise and invasive species. Labor unions and workers’ rights advocates opposed the law, while business organizations supported it, including the National Federation of Independent Business, a lobbying group with more than 20,000 members in Texas. Abbott said it would “provide a new hope to Texas businesses struggling under burdensome local regulations.”

Supporters of HB 2127 say that local regulations on breaks for construction workers are unnecessary because the right to a safe labor environment is already guaranteed through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Water breaks are better solved by OSHA controls, argued Geoffrey Tahuahua, president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas. Tahuahua believes local rules impose a rigid scheme that, unlike OSHA guidelines, does not allow the flexibility needed to tailor breaks to individual job site conditions.

“They try to make one size fits all, and that is not how it should work,” he said. “These ordinances just add confusion and encourage people to do the minimum instead of doing the right thing.”

David Michaels, who was head of OSHA from 2009 to 2017, disagreed with the approach of HB 2127 proponents.

“Under OSHA law, it is employers who are responsible to make sure workers are safe,” said Michaels, now a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. “And we have compelling evidence that they are doing a very poor job because many workers are injured on the job, especially in Texas.”

Michaels pointed out that OSHA does not have a national standard for heat-related illnesses and issues citations only for over-exposure to heat after an injury or death, but not before that occurs.

“The better solution would be to have a national standard, but since we do not, local ordinances are very important for saving lives,” he said. “Prohibiting these local laws will result in workers being severely hurt or killed.”

Gonzalez, from the Texas AFL-CIO, disagrees with the idea that local regulations hurt businesses.

Mandated water breaks “were passed in 2010 in Austin and construction is still growing, especially in the state’s largest cities,” Gonzalez said. “It is simply false, an excuse to limit local governments’ power and an intrusion into democracy.”

HB 2127 does not impede the enactment of a state law establishing mandatory breaks for construction workers, and during the regular session, two bills were filed to that effect.

House Bill 495, authored by Rep. Thresa Meza, D-Irving, sought to establish 10-minute mandatory breaks every four hours for contractors working for a governmental entity. House Bill 4673, by Rep. Maria Luisa Flores, D-Austin, would have created a statewide advisory board responsible for establishing standards to prevent heat illness in Texas workplaces and set penalties for employers who do not comply with them.

Neither bill made it through the legislative process.

Daniela Hernandez, state legislative coordinator for the Workers Defense Project, said she hopes legislators will push for a state law mandating water breaks for workers. She added that she would not discard the possibility that cities sue to try to keep their water break ordinances.

“Without an ordinance or a law, there is no safeguard. There is no guarantee that the worker will have those water breaks,” he said. “We will keep fighting.”

#us politics #news #the texas tribune #2023 #texas #gov. greg abbott #republicans #conservatives #gop policy #gop platform #gop #House Bill 2127 #Texas Legislature #heat wave #U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics #worker's rights #union workers #Texas AFL-CIO #Ana Gonzalez #National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration #Dustin Burrows #National Federation of Independent Business #Occupational Safety and Health Administration #Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas #Mandated water breaks #House Bill 495 #House Bill 4673 #Thresa Meza #Maria Luisa Flores #Workers Defense Project

[lichenaday]

Introducing the BLAM Lichen of the Year for 2023 . . .

Cladonia rangiformis

False reindeer lichen

The Bryologisch-lichenologische Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Mitteleuropa e. V. has selected C. rangiformis to represent us all this year for its endurance in rugged, nutrient-poor habitats, where it oft forms large, dense cushions that grow quickly for lichens, and even outcompete mosses and grasses as the dominant vegetation cover in alkaline, calcareous, and "skeletal" soils. It has richly-branched podetia above a squamulose basal thallus, and is pale gray, gray-green, or tan in coloration. It occasionally forms small, bulbous, dark red-brown apothecia at the ends of the branches. Unlike a lot of similarly bushy Cladonia look-alikes, it grows in sunny, open, temperate areas that are relatively dry. This potentially makes it a good species to grow on rooftops and other liminal spaces that could use some "greening," helping to mitigate urban heat island effects and cycling CO2.

Taking inspiration from C. ranigiformis, I suggest we head into the year 2023 with ingenuity and resilience, looking for ways we can use our unique talents to make the world a better place! Happy New Year, and let's all do what we can to make it a good one, yeah? For me, for you, for everyone else, and especially for lichens.

images and info: source

[information and photo cred to Wolfgang von Brackel and Martin Nebel of BLAM e.V.]

#lichen #lichens #lichen of the year #lichen 2023 #2023 #happy new year #flechten des jahres #Cladonia rangiformis #Cladonia #lichenology #lichenologist #lichenized fungus #fungus #fungi #algae #I love lichens #lichens are so good #I'm lichen it #lichen a day #daily lichen post #nature #the natural world #beautiful nature #weird nature #environmental science #natural science #life science #science side of tumblr #words to live by #lichen subscribe

[thehappybroadcast]

Bee bus stops first appeared in the Dutch city of Utrecht. Now the UK is planning for more than 1,000 and there is growing interest across Europe and in Canada and Australia.

Dutch cities have managed to stabilise urban bee populations in recent years, a study found last year, following decades of declines, and bee hotels and bee stops were among their solutions. Humble bus shelter roofs are being turned into riots of colour, with the number of miniature gardens – full of pollinator-friendly flora such as wild strawberries, poppies and pansies – set to increase by 50% in the UK by the end of this year. Clear Channel aims to create at least 1,000 bee bus stops in the UK, hopefully more. They are already established in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden, and the company is building them in France and Belgium later this year, with inquiries coming from as far afield as Canada and Australia.

Clear Channel is working with the Wildlife Trusts to maximise the benefit to wildlife. Native flowers such as kidney vetch, thyme, selfheal and wild marjoram have been chosen to attract a range of pollinators including common carder bees, buff-tailed bumblebees, peacock butterflies, small tortoiseshell butterflies and chequered hoverflies. As well as the wildlife benefits, the roofs also absorb rainwater, and make a small contribution to offsetting the urban heat island effect. Source: The Guardian (link in bio) Art by @elizareisfeldart #bees #conservation #uk #goodnewsfeed https://www.instagram.com/p/ClTx_pIrfk7/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#bees #conservation #uk #goodnewsfeed

[mariacallous]

Just weeks after a third of the US population was hit with air-quality alerts thanks to smoke from climate-change-fueled fires in Canada, 100 million Americans are now under heat alerts. A cap of extra-hot air, known as a heat dome, has settled over the West and South, pushing temperatures relentlessly higher. 

The map below shows excessive heat warnings in purple and heat advisories in orange, and the forecast is that things will get worse through the weekend. Highs will stay above 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Phoenix; California’s Death Valley is flirting with 130 degrees; and Texas’s grid is struggling to keep the AC on. 

This follows the hottest June on record globally. “With an evolving El Niño event, that is certain to further increase global temperatures,” says Howard Diamond, climate science program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Air Resources Laboratory. (El Niño is a band of warm water that develops in the Pacific Ocean and influences weather around the world.) “Canada has also experienced multiple bouts of prolonged heat this summer, contributing to the worst wildfire season the country has ever seen,” Diamond adds.

A heat dome is essentially stagnation. It forms as a strong high-pressure system. As that air descends to the ground, it compresses and significantly warms up: A few thousand feet up, air might be 80 degrees, but it can reach 100 degrees once it hits the land. 

This descending cap of hot air self-perpetuates for days or even weeks. It discourages the formation of clouds, allowing the sun’s energy to hit the landscape full force, further raising ground temperatures. At the beginning of a heat dome, moisture in the dirt and plants evaporates away, somewhat cooling the landscape—it’s sweating, basically. But as the heat continues for days on end, that moisture runs out and temperatures climb higher. 

In other words, the heat dome feeds on itself. “There is no cloud cover, there is a lot of solar radiation coming in, there is no precipitation,” says Claudia Tebaldi, a climate scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “You also trigger this feedback—you dry the soil, and there is no way for things to cool down by evaporation.”

That self-perpetuation makes heat domes extremely dangerous. It’s bad enough when temperatures rise above 110 for a single day, especially for people with conditions like asthma, because the heat leads to the formation of ozone, which irritates the airways. But if temperatures soar for days—and especially if temperatures stay high overnight—the body has no time to recover. The stress keeps piling up.

This is all the more precarious in big cities like Phoenix, Houston, and Los Angeles—all of which are baking right now—due to the urban heat island effect. The concrete and brick of the built environment absorbs the sun’s energy, launching temperatures way higher than in surrounding rural areas, which can rely on plants to cool things off. Buildings and other infrastructure then slowly release that heat through the evening, meaning nighttime temperatures stay high. That affects not only people’s physical health but also their mental health, if they’re not able to sleep night after blazing night. Low-income neighborhoods suffer the worst, as they’re consistently and quantifiably hotter than richer ones, since they have fewer green spaces like parks and gardens.

Climate change, of course, is making extreme heat more extreme. “The trend of temperatures increasing everywhere over time is unequivocal,” says Diamond. “An average summer today, for example, might have been considered a hot summer several decades ago. Likewise, a hot summer in the future may very well be considered an average one a few decades from now.”

Scientists are still debating whether climate change will make heat domes more common, says Tebaldi, since their formation depends on complex atmospheric dynamics. The severity of heat domes, though, is a different question. Because the world is generally getting hotter, heat domes start off with temperatures that are higher than before, which could boost their ability to feed back on themselves. This is similar to climate change’s effect on hurricanes: It might not make them more common, but because the storms feed on warmth in the Atlantic, higher temperatures could make them more intense.

Climate change is also exacerbating droughts, meaning there’s already less moisture in the landscape that could evaporate to offset some of the heating, at least in the early stages of a heat dome. “Heat domes are not new,” says Diamond. “But their extent, duration, and amount of extreme heat could very well be attributed to the climate change that we are seeing across the globe.”

[amtrak-official]

How to fix an urban heat island effect: plant street trees, it is that simple, that can improve the urban heat island effect, if you want downtowns to be livable, just plant trees, they naturally cool areas and provide shade, plus they're pretty. There is no reason not to plant street trees other than the budget and if thats an issue just cut the police budgets by a few million

[metamatar]

Jenamani said the hole over Delhi in the satellite image points to an ‘urban fog hole’.

A 2018 paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Geophysical Union, attributed such ‘holes’ in fog to urban heat islands. The paper, titled ‘Urban Heat Island Over Delhi Punches Holes in Widespread Fog in the Indo-Gangetic Plains’ authored by Ritesh Gautam of Environmental Defense Fund in USA and Manoj K Singh, pointed to ‘holes’ in fog over major urban centres in Indo-Gangetic Plain. It noted that land surface temperature is higher over cities owing to urban heat island effect, and increased temperature contributes to dissipation of fog. The urban heat island effect is generally seen in densely populated built-up areas and is also associated with higher nighttime or minimum temperatures in cities.

#weather blogging #climate change #india