Urban Cool Islands

 As we all know, global warming is happening quickly and new phenomenon's have began to erupt from such. One of those being Urban Cool Islands (UCI) - defined by IGI GLOBAL as "cooler urban areas compared to non-urban/rural surroundings." This is a sensation that occurs in arid areas with little vegetation in the countryside outside the city due to the urban area itself having a lower temperature. This is not a very common theme among urban areas as they are usually much hotter than their respective rural areas due to emissions from buildings, industries, transportation, and just the high population of people. In various cities around the world have been addressing this concern, in France for example, "discussed procedures with urban planners and investors in the aim of incorporating a set of reasonable measures for local climate adaptation in a particular new urban area" (ScienceDirect). If you were to look at an area like Phoenix, Arizona, an extremely urban area compared to the rest of the state there is an exponential difference between the amount of vegetation in the city itself and the surrounding environment. Vegetation including golf courses, oriental plants, trees lining the streets and so on, these plants produce oxygen helping to keep the city itself cool. 


Phoenix, Arizona (Zumper)

Another factor to urban cool islands is people; people, especially in a warmer area need to keep cool, so the use of air conditioning and other appliances emit to the atmosphere to contribute to the lower temperatures. In Hong Kong they have discovered "that when anthropogenic heat is small or absent, a high-rise, and high-density city experiences a significant daytime UCI effect." (RMets). Anthropogenic heat is heat released to the atmosphere as a result of human activities. Hong Kong has one of the most dense populations in the world, so for the UCI to be present is quite impressive as other dense cities do not contribute to the cooling sensation but just continue to add to the rising temperatures in urban areas. A way for other cities to model could possibly be to add more 'smart surfaces' such as a lighter pavement to help the sunlight reflect, using lighter paint colors, or incorporating more green spaces to allow more vegetation to produce more oxygen. Urban cool islands do not pose a threat as great as urban heat islands or necessarily pose a threat at all, they are just a new phenomenon added to the list of effects of urbanization. 



References 

 What is Urban Cool Island. IGI Global. (n.d.). https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/seasonal-contrast-of-land-surface-temperature-in-faridabad/98212#:~:text=Definition%20of%20Urban%20Cool%20Island%3A%20Cooler,urban%20area%20compared%20to%20the%20non-urban%2Frural%20surroundings.

Author links open overlay panelTathiane A.L. Martins a b, a, b, AbstractOne of the first airmail services in the world, Ahmed, K. S., Ali-Toudert, F., Allegrini, J., Arens, E., Ashtiani, A., Bourbia, F., Carnielo, E., Chen, L., Chen, H., Chow, W. T., Chow, W. T. L., Dimoudi, A., Eliasson, I., Harlan, S. L., Hass-Klau, C., … Chen, Y.-C. (2016, May 12). Impact of urban cool island measures on outdoor climate and pedestrian comfort: Simulations for a new district of Toulouse, France. Sustainable Cities and Society. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2210670716300828

Yang , X., Li, Y., Luo, Z., & Chan, P. W. (2016, May 16). The urban cool island phenomenon in a high-rise high-density city and its mechanisms. Royal Meteorologist Society  . https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/joc.4747

Bennett, L. (2023, March 3). 10 fun facts about Phoenix, Arizona. The Zumper Blog. https://www.zumper.com/blog/facts-about-phoenix/

Geographyrealms. (2023, November 7). Can painting city streets reduce the urban heat island effect?. Geography Realm. https://www.geographyrealm.com/can-painting-city-streets-reduce-urban-heat-island-effect/

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