Latest news with #urbanheatisland
CBS News
a day ago
- Climate
- CBS News
Boston's "heat islands" have dangerous impacts. How small changes could help
If the weather's felt unbearable lately, you're not imagining it. Boston is entering another stretch of sweltering heat, but for some residents, it's more than just uncomfortable. It's dangerous. And where you live in the city could be making things significantly worse. On one July day in 2019, the official temperature reading at Logan Airport was 92 degrees. But in Ashmont, a neighborhood in Dorchester just a few miles away, the temperature reached 102.6 degrees. That's a staggering 10-degree difference. "You're talking about a 15-degree disparity between the hottest and coolest parts of the city on the same day," said David Sittenfeld, director of the Center for the Environment at the Museum of Science in Boston. "And that has huge implications for public health, emergency services, and energy use." Sittenfeld has spent the last two decades studying Boston's "urban heat island effect," a phenomenon where certain neighborhoods become significantly hotter than others due to dense development, asphalt, a lack of green space and historical inequities in city planning. Urban areas tend to absorb and retain heat, especially places with large amounts of concrete, brick and blacktop. Unlike trees or grass, these surfaces trap solar radiation and release it slowly, turning neighborhoods into long-lasting heat batteries. This becomes especially dangerous at night when temperatures fail to cool off. The heat puts extra stress on the human body and leaves residents, especially seniors and those with chronic conditions, vulnerable to heat-related illnesses. The disparities aren't random. Sittenfeld's team compared areas that were historically redlined - cut off from investment and housing loans - with wealthier, greener neighborhoods. In East Boston, for example, redlined areas had only 3% tree canopy on average. In contrast, more affluent parts of Greater Boston had up to 43% tree canopy. That lack of shade, combined with dense pavement and limited access to green space or water, gives some neighborhoods what Sittenfeld calls a "head start" toward dangerous outcomes like blackouts, heat stroke and respiratory issues. Adding to the concern is the way some public spaces are being redeveloped. One recent example? Copley Square. The once-green plaza in the Back Bay was recently resurfaced with stone and concrete. While intended to modernize the space and support events, critics say it's now more of a heat reflector than a community oasis. "Every time we pave over green space, we're making the heat island worse," said Sittenfeld. "We need to think about the long-term thermal footprint of the spaces we build." But there are bright spots. Just half a mile from one of East Boston's hottest intersections near Maverick Square, researchers recorded temperatures seven degrees cooler at Belle Isle Marsh. The difference? A salt marsh with just four trees. "Restoring even small amounts of natural landscape can help. Especially in coastal neighborhoods. Bringing back wetlands, or even just reducing pavement, can be faster and more feasible than planting full tree canopies," said Sittenfeld. In fact, planners across the region are beginning to think block by block. "Can we depave a section? Can we plant a few bushes? It doesn't have to be massive to make a difference," he said. With more extreme heat forecast later this week - and more to come in a warming climate - Boston officials are also turning to short-term solutions. Some libraries now double as cooling centers, offering shaded outdoor spray tents and reading programs for kids. The city is promoting "social connectedness," too, encouraging residents to check in on elderly neighbors who may not have air conditioning or access to digital heat alerts. "This is about resilience," said Sittenfeld. "Not everyone experiences heat the same way. But we can take small, smart steps to make it safer for everyone." There are ways you can help in your community.
Telegraph
03-07-2025
- Climate
- Telegraph
Why is the Met Office adopting the language of climate alarmism?
I gather it's been hot down south. My sympathies. As Londoners were sweltering, we had a chilly breeze off the North Sea in Northumberland. The UK Met Office says it is 'virtually certain' that June (the hottest in England since 1884, second hottest in the UK) was made hotter by human activity. Duh! Even if temperatures were not affected by greenhouse gases, which they are, the 34.7C (94.5F) recorded in St James's Park on Tuesday might have something to do with that weather station being a low-reliability 'class 5' site with an error rating of 'up to 5C'. It's next to a very busy tarmac path. Plus, it is in the middle of a city and therefore subject to a more general 'urban heat island' effect. Research by Arup reckons London's heat island is worth 4.5C extra warmth on average. So yes, the heat is indeed partly man-made – but not necessarily in the way the Met Office means. Besides, it's not exactly unusual to have hot days in summer: it reached 36.7C (98.1F) in Northamptonshire in 1911. As the world gets slowly warmer, we will see more hot summer days, though not as much as we will see more mild winter nights: winter nighttime temperatures have risen faster than summer daytime ones, as predicted by the greenhouse effect, just as Arctic temperatures have risen faster than tropical ones. The Met Office exists to forecast the weather. But increasingly it seems bored by the day job so it likes to lecture us about climate change. And here it seems to have been embarrassingly duped by activists. Go on its climate pages and you find a forecast for the year 2070, that summers will be between one and six degrees warmer and 'up to' 60 per cent drier, depending on the region. A lot of wriggle room in those caveats, note. Then it admits: 'We base these changes on the RCP8.5 high emissions scenario.' Aha! Unbelievably, shockingly, this national forecasting body has chosen as its base case for the future of weather a debunked, highly implausible set of assumptions about the world economy that was never intended to be used this way. RCP8.5 is one of five projected futures for the world economy this century, dreamt up by economists. Here is what it assumes. First, the world becomes addicted to coal, burning 10 times – yes, 10 times! – as much coal in 2100 as we did in 2000 and even using coal to make fuel for aircraft and cars. Yes: that is really what it says. It projects that fully half of all the world's energy will be supplied by coal in 2100. Second, it assumes that the world population will have swelled to 12 billion people by 2100, way more than any demographer thinks is likely. Third, it assumes that innovation will somehow dry up so there's hardly any new technology to make our lives more fuel-efficient – and we won't even try to cut emissions. In short, this scenario is barking mad. Don't take my word for it. Here's what Carbon Brief, an activist website, has to say: 'The creators of RCP8.5 had not intended it to represent the most likely 'business as usual' outcome… Its subsequent use as such represents something of a breakdown in communication between energy systems modellers and the climate modelling community.' Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that RCP8.5 should not be used as a forecast. And here's its chief creator, Keywan Riahi: 'I wished I would have been clearer with what I meant by 'business as usual'.' In 2020, even the ultra-alarmist BBC said RCP8.5 was 'exceedingly unlikely'. Yet here, five years later, we have the Met Office itself still basing its forecasts for 2070 on ludicrous assumptions. And no, this is no 'breakdown in communications': this is deliberately seeking extreme predictions to scare people and so get media attention. If they used more realistic assumptions, they fear, the future would sound less terrifying. Come on, Met Office, do the decent thing and ditch the climate apocalypticism. If you must try to forecast the weather in 2070 – and for all your supercomputers, you generally admit you cannot reliably forecast the weather more than a week or two ahead – then use realistic assumptions. Even if it makes the future sound less scary.
