Hot in the city
Detailed mapping reveals an unexpected picture of temperatures in major urban areas. Richard A Lovett reports.
Buildings, tree cover, wind and roads all affect the way heat builds and dissipates in large cities.
Buildings, tree cover, wind and roads all affect the way heat builds and dissipates in large cities.
Anyone who lives in a big city knows that on hot days some areas are less unpleasant than others. But an American researcher has found that on a typical summer day, urban temperatures can vary by as much as 11.5 degrees Celsius across gradients as small as a few hundred metres.
A few years ago, Vivek Shandas, an urban climatologist at Portland State University in Oregon, realised that he could map urban temperatures by equipping cars with inexpensive sensors. Measurements could then be taken as drivers crisscrossed the city.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscience/hot-in-the-city
