Washington Post (August 22)
“As a heat dome promises to smash more records this week across swaths of the Midwest, South and Southeast. The country can expect that extreme heat, which already kills more people than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined, will only worsen in the coming summers.” Cities can do little “to reduce the intensity of hurricanes” or change the path of tornadoes, but they can intervene to “reduce heat-wave intensity.” Almost “80 percent of the U.S. population lives” in cities where “the urban heat island effect can increase temperatures by 8 degrees.” Measures like requiring “reflective building materials, such as cool roofs;” and “increasing green spaces” can lower “peak temperatures by as much as 2 to 9 degrees Celsius.”
Tags: Cool roofs; Green spaces, Extreme, Floods, Heat dome, Heat wave, Hurricanes, Intensity, Intervene, Records, Reflective building materials, Summers, Temperatures, Tornadoes, U.S., Urban heat island
