Hello Tunza Readers!

Today I will be talking about urban heat islands, a topic that you might not be as familiar with. An urban heat island is basically an urban area which has a higher temperature than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities.

A survey by the Nature Climate Change journal found that the cost for cities to limit climate change including the local heat impacts would be 2.6 times lower without the urban heat island effect.

During the summertime, cities get significantly warmer due to the heavy use of air conditioning. Furthermore, there is heavy use of smokestacks and exhaust pipes in cities which produce a lot more heat. In cities there are a lot of buildings typically made of concrete, brick and asphalt these materials absorb a lot of the energy from the sun and radiate it back into the urban atmosphere at night which raises the heat levels even more in urban areas.

To combat this urban heat island effect, trees, soil and water should be implemented more into the designs they release cooling moisture into their surroundings through evapotranspiration. More green roofs can be implemented into cities. Aside from fighting off the urban heat island effect, they also assist in cooling for interior spaces which reduces the need for air conditioning.

There are even resources out there to assist in reducing urban heat islands such as in the following website: http://haznet.ca/helping-canadian-communities-reduce-urban-heat-islands/