Deadly Heat Is Baking Cities. Here’s How to Cool Them Down

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Deadly Heat Is Baking Cities. Here’s How to Cool Them Down

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Urban areas tin beryllium 20 degrees hotter than the surrounding country. But greenish spaces and reflective pavement tin marque metropolis beingness much bearable.

Phoenix skyline

Photograph: Fang Xia Nuo/Getty Images

If you’ve ever driven from the state into the metropolis and marveled astatine however the somesthesia dramatically spiked, you’ve felt the municipality vigor land effect. The streets and buildings of a metropolis sorb the sun’s vigor during the time and gradually merchandise it astatine night. The built situation essentially bakes itself, and temperatures tin soar arsenic overmuch arsenic 20 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the surrounding country, which benefits from swaths of trees that “sweat,” releasing h2o vapor and cooling the air.