Check How Hot Your City Is On The Urban Heat Island Effect Maps

A new study shows that inner cities and suburban areas are hotter than the countryside around it. Scientists calculated the metro heat island intensities across the US, according to scienceworldreport.

Hence, the 'urban heat island effect' is a description of the manner in which the "spatial configuration of cities, the materials in them, the lack of vegetation and waste heat" can alter the temperatures, which have for years been linked with the formation of urban heat islands.

Using a new method to calculate the intensities, scientists looked at the Urban Heat Island (UHI) depth of 50 cities that had different urban morphologies. They then evaluated the degree to which the city configuration impacted the UHI effect.

"The overall goal of our study was to clarify which urban form-sprawl or more-dense development is most appropriate for UHI mitigation," said Neil Debbage, the study's lead author, in a news release.

Hence, the Parameter-elevation Relationships on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM), an analytical model creating gridded estimates through incorporating factoring "variables, expert knowledge of climatic events and digital elevation" was one of the methods used by the researchers.

"We found that more contiguous sprawling and dense urban development both enhanced UHI intensities," said Debbage. "In other words, it does not appear to be a simplistic either-or situation regarding sprawl or density."

The results are hoped to help influence city planners who wish to alleviate the urban heat island effect.

The findings are published in the journal Computers, Environment and Urban Systems.