A group of climate researchers is showing how city environments are especially vulnerable to heat waves thanks to an effect called urban heat islands.
An urban heat island is an area of higher temperatures in a city due to infrastructure like pavement and lack of temperature-moderating green spaces.
Researchers at Climate Central, a nonprofit climate change news group, broke down data from 44 cities, including Tulsa.
"In Tulsa, you’re seeing places downtown where it’s seven/eight degrees warmer," said Dr. Andrew Pershing, vice president at Climate Central. "That’s going to get added onto the temperatures that people experience every day."
Excessively high temperatures were felt throughout the southern U.S. this summer. Dr. Pershing said those heat waves, brought on by climate change, add another layer of danger in urban areas on top of heat islands.
"What you’re doing is taking a climate-driven event, the heat wave, and then making it even more impactful in the city because of the things that we’ve done in the environment," he said.
In addition to effects on humans, Pershing also said high heat can cause damage to wildlife and infrastructure.
"Wild animals don't have air conditioning. They can't really escape from the heat. They're out in this environment and are having to deal with conditions that they've never experienced before," Pershing said. "In a lot of cases, we've built cities to deal with the heat that we've had historically and not the heat that we're experiencing now or that we're going to have."
While solutions to global climate change are very much a wordly issue, Pershing said there are things cities can do to mitigate heat islands.
"The people in a city actually have a lot of control over their environment. A big part of that is enhancing green spaces: trying to get more trees worked into the urban environment."
Trees have a temperature moderating effect on surrounding environments, which is why rural areas don't see heat islands to the same extent as cities.
Learn more about 2023 urban heat hot spots from Climate Central here.
