The sweltering heat endured by major American cities is being fueled by vast swaths of concrete and a lack of greenery that can ratchet up temperatures by nearly 9 degrees F (5 degrees C) compared with surrounding rural areas, new research has found.
The sweltering heat endured by major American cities is being fueled by vast swaths of concrete and a lack of greenery that can ratchet up temperatures by nearly 9 degrees F (5 degrees C) compared with surrounding rural areas, new research has found.
In the past month, Phoenix experienced a string of four days above 115 F (46 C) for the first time and Boston hit 100 F for the first time in a decade. A deadly heat wave in the U.S. northwest, which scientists say would have been “virtually impossible” without human-induced climate change, baked Seattle at a record 108 F, while Portland, where roads buckled and power cables melted in the heat, reached an incredible new high of 116 F.
The intensifying heat is heightened in large urban areas by their design, according to a new report that has attempted to quantify where the “urban heat island” effect is most acute.
Read more at: Yale Environment 360
Photo Credit: Wallula via Pixabay
