The urban heat island effect is something that has been very noticeable to me over recent years. I live in the suburbs, and I am constantly travelling back and forth between my house and the city. Every morning when I check the weather, the forecast is always warmer for the city than in my neighborhood. Because I check the weather daily, I know there is this difference in temperature in the city, but I don’t always feel it. However, specifically in the summer I found it to be significantly hotter in the city, which is consistent with the data in this paper. The paper says that in New York City, the mean heat island was 7.2°F in the summer and fall and 5.4°F in the winter and spring in 2003. These numbers are very significant, and it is concerning that not much is being done about it so it’s only going to get higher.
While I knew that the city was getting warmer than surrounding areas, I honestly never really knew what the big deal was. It obviously isn’t natural, but before reading this paper, I did not know the actually problems associated with the heat island effect. For some of the environmental problems we talk about there isn’t always a lot of evidence of the consequences. Here, there is a strong correlation between ground-level ozone and temperatures in the city. This is one of the many consequences of pollution and ozone emissions. While mentioned that I do notice the warmer temperatures in the city, I did not think that these temperatures were significant enough to cause real health problems. Like many people, I assumed it would be more of an issue in like 50 years from now. It was surprising to read that the causes real health problems, including disease and injury. It also makes sense that heat is a public stressor. I was definitely shocked to read about how heat contributes to increased mortality rates in the city, because while heat can be annoying and cause some illnesses, I did not think the temperatures in the city were high enough to cause deaths.
The good news is that there are many things that can be done to mitigate this urban heat island problem. As mentioned in the past, this is one of the many benefits of green roofs. There are so many roofs in NYC that are unused and the implementation of vegetation can help fix this problem. This is also true for cool roofs and cool pavements, which lower ozone levels and temperatures. We have the technology to fix this heating problem, but it’s up to the government and individual efforts to start putting the money and efforts into these solutions.
