Heat islands have profound effects on emissions, as higher temperatures outside increase demand for energy inside
AMERICA HAS been baking this weekend. An estimated 128m people along the East Coast and in the Midwest were affected by excessive-heat warnings on July 20th. This particular heatwave is likely to fade quickly, but such events are becoming more common.
This phenomenon was first documented in the early 19th century by a meteorological pioneer called Luke Howard. In his three-volume The Climate of London, Howard concluded that “the temperature of the city is not to be considered as that of the climate; it partakes too much of an artificial warmth, induced by its structure, by a crowded population, and the consumption of great quantities of fuel in fires.
Heat islands also have profound effects on emissions, as higher temperatures outside increase demand for energy inside. Higher urban air temperatures are responsible for 5–10% of peak electricity demand for air conditioning in America, according to a study in 2005 by Hashem Akbari, then of the Heat Island Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Such lessons are more useful in places where cities are still being built out. Elsewhere, the emphasis is on changing the surfaces of cities. More vegetation is one obvious answer: in any heat map of Manhattan, for example, Central Park will show up as being considerably cooler than surrounding areas. Trees in particular offer lots of shade and, through a process called evapotranspiration, use energy from the sun to evaporate water within their leaves.
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