Climate challengesCities Unprepared for Intense, Frequent Heat Waves
Urban centers across the world are unprepared to face brutal, climate change-driven natural disasters. Many emerging global climate risks, such as heat stress, will be especially damaging in urban areas, because of urban infrastructure both exacerbates and fails to handle extreme heat. With over 50 percent of the world’s population residing in densely populated urban areas, heat-related deaths, economic disruption, and infrastructural damage are becoming a growing concern.
As the world braces for more intense heat waves fueled by climate change this summer, urban centers across the world are unprepared to face these brutal natural disasters.
Several countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, surpassed 50 degrees Celsius this summer. Also, Moscow and Helsinki, Finland, saw their hottest June temperatures on record.
A few weeks ago, a record-breaking heat wave in the usually temperate Pacific Northwest of the United States and western Canada brought temperatures of 42 degrees Celsius or higher. Oregon and Washington state reported nearly 200 heat-related deaths, and British Columbia’s Coroners Service recorded over three times the number of sudden deaths than usual. Laborers in kitchens, warehouses, factories and fields suffered from heat exhaustion. Thousands of people lost power, and some public transportation services shut down due to melting operating infrastructure.
“(Heat) is different than other extremes because it’s slow moving, it’s invisible,” said Jennifer Vanos, who studies the effects of extreme heat on human health at Arizona State University. “And when it’s anomalous, when it’s something people have never experienced before, then it becomes a lot more dangerous.”
Many emerging global climate risks, such as heat stress, will be concentrated in urban areas, according to reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Heat waves can hit hard in cities, partly because of urban infrastructure that both exacerbates and fails to handle extreme heat. With over 50% of the world’s population residing in densely populated urban areas, experts expect heat-related deaths, economic consequences and infrastructural damage will become a growing concern.
Urban Islands of Heat
Cities can run several degrees hotter than nonurban environments. This effect, known as an urban heat island, puts city dwellers at more risk during hot weather. Asphalt in pavement and roof shingles, for example, provides a dark surface that reflects less light and absorbs more heat, explained Hashem Akbari, who studies urban heat islands at Concordia University in Montreal.
Meanwhile, closely packed buildings and streets also mean fewer trees and plants, which reduces potential shade. Plants normally absorb water through their roots and use surrounding heat to evaporate and emit the moisture as vapor from their leaves. With less greenery, that natural cooling effect is also gone.
“Citizens who are living in urban areas are going to see the cumulative effect of the heat island plus the extreme heat that will come,” Akbari told VOA.
