Article about urban heat islands

[JNA]

Urban group wants to help cool down Louisville's heat island

Brian Stone Jr., a Georgia Institute of Technology city and regional planning professor... author of the new book,
“The City and the Coming Climate: Climate Change in the Places We Live.”
Another book for your reading list. I wonder if he will have a seesion at a APA Conference ?

Forget gobal warming or not but cities do have/create a urban heat island issue.

Heat is a public health issue. It’s a quality-of-life issue.

Related to tree planting efforts - Does your fair community require landscaped island in parking lots above a certain size ?

[ColoGI]

Urban group wants to help cool down Louisville's heat island

Brian Stone Jr., a Georgia Institute of Technology city and regional planning professor... author of the new book,
“The City and the Coming Climate: Climate Change in the Places We Live.”
Another book for your reading list. I wonder if he will have a seesion at a APA Conference ?

Forget gobal warming or not but cities do have/create a urban heat island issue.


Related to tree planting efforts - Does your fair community require landscaped island in parking lots above a certain size ?

Brian Stone is one of the big names in UHI study. He has found that the large-lot developments in the Merkin South are contributors to the urban heat island as well, because the large lot is not covered by trees (due to cultural preferences) and the lawn becomes semi-pervious (lowering evapotranspiration) from the mowin' ritual.

Nonetheless, transportation network design using trees is one of my focuses (foci?) this year, and you'd be surprised how poor many of these parking regulations are. And then if there are islands-peninsulas, extremely few regulations say anything about tree roots. :o\

[sancheq]

There is a readily discernible UHI effect in the western suburbs of Chicago during our current heat wave. Temperatures of 108 and above are happening with unprecedented regularity.

[Random Traffic Guy]

UHI is one of my arguments when trying to reform parking minimums. It really is noticable when you walk around in different quality sites. I hope some good support comes out on this, I will look up Brian Stone.

UHI also affects the surface climate record since many of the instrument stations which were previously in rural areas are now developed, skewing their observations. So I don't put much stock in the records, they just make good media. The site www.surfacestations.org was a volunteer effort to survey the USHCN network and some of the examples were surprising. Very few of the stations met the NOAA standards for good locations, so they could have significant errors. A degree or two doesn't really matter when looking at weather, but a possible (and changing) skew on climate time frames is pretty significant, especially when the amount of potential change from observation error is much larger than that from climate change.

Besides general UHI from development in the region there are also many micro-level effects on the individual stations, like air conditioner exhaust, asphalt parking lots, or simply shade from now-larger trees in the immediate vicinity. One of the laughable ones was UA at Tucson, which they say has been operating since 1867: http://gallery.surfacestations.org/m...g2_itemId=1606. Hmm, you think they had that big parking lot there when they started?

[ColoGI]

UHI is one of my arguments when trying to reform parking minimums. It really is noticable when you walk around in different quality sites. I hope some good support comes out on this, I will look up Brian Stone.

UHI also affects the surface climate record since many of the instrument stations which were previously in rural areas are now developed, skewing their observations. ...The site www.surfacestations.org ...

Srsly. Surfacestations. Frreals? There are people still clinging to that thin reed? Who knew it still lived?!?!

The balderdash from poor hapless Watts notwithstanding, uncovered parking lots are perhaps the worst contributors to UHI, including these cr*ppy bigboxes bullying cities into allowing them to pour asphalt and walk away without covering it, making everyone else pay for their indifference. I keep hoping stormwater needs and tree planting to meet them will lessen the UHI, but tree canopy keeps decreasing, alas.

[Random Traffic Guy]

Srsly. Surfacestations. Frreals? There are people still clinging to that thin reed? Who knew it still lived?!?!

Touched a nerve eh? You can't deny many of the stations would get you failed out of an undergrad instrumentation class

[/end digression]

[ColoGI]

Touched a nerve eh? You can't deny many of the stations would get you failed out of an undergrad instrumentation class

[/end digression]

The nerve struck is that there are still people who believe his BS. And his BS has no place in civil society.

[/end digression]