Urban heat islands - will the cites cook in the heatwave to come

An urban heat island, is a metropolitan area that's a lot warmer than the rural areas surrounding it. Extra heat is created by all the people, cars, buses, and trains in big cities like Manchester, Birmingham and London. These Urban areas also have very little green space - to cool any part down. On extremely hot days these cities with all their tarmac and concrete and building create much warmer areas than their surrounding rural areas. This temperature difference is more acute in hot conditions adding as much as 5C. At night when the rural areas cool down, the building still give out heat making the cites much warmer at nigh up to 10 degrees and so the cites are warmer early in the mornings and can heat up further for the same amount of solar energy gained. When the UK is forecast temperatures in the high thirties the cites will get much hotter. Although the mean temperature will be high, garden patios and other enclosed areas will be considerably hotter.




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