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A definition of urban heat island is: "The relative warmth of a city compared with surrounding rural areas." [14]: 2926 This relative warmth is caused by "heat trapping due to land use, the configuration and design of the built environment, including street layout and building size, the heat-absorbing properties of urban building materials, reduced ventilation, reduced greenery and water ...
Within most U.S. cities, people of color are more likely to live in areas of high Surface Urban Heat Island Intensity than white people in the same cities. According to a study by climatologist Angel Hsu and colleagues, "the average person of color lives in a census tract with higher SUHI intensity than non-Hispanic whites in all but 6 of the ...
The urban heat island is a phenomenon in which central regions of urban centers exhibit higher mean temperatures than surrounding urban areas. [38] Much of this effect can be attributed to low city albedo , the reflecting power of a surface, and the increased surface area of buildings to absorb solar radiation. [ 21 ]
Urbanization additionally affects land cover through the urban heat island effect. Heat islands occur when, due to high concentrations of structures, such as buildings and roads, that absorb and re-emit solar radiation, and low concentrations of vegetative cover, urban areas experience higher temperatures than surrounding areas. [37]
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An urban thermal plume describes rising air in the lower altitudes of the Earth's atmosphere caused by urban areas being warmer than surrounding areas. Over the past thirty years there has been increasing interest in what have been called urban heat islands (UHI), [1] but it is only since 2007 that thought has been given to the rising columns of warm air, or ‘thermal plumes’ that they produce.
The urban environment has two atmosphere layers, besides the planetary boundary layer (PBL) outside and extending well above the city: (1) The urban boundary layer is due to the spatially integrated heat and moisture exchanges between the city and its overlying air. (2) The surface of the city corresponds to the level of the urban canopy layer.
Increased urban land use and occupation alters the local thermal field resulting in the development of warmer regions known as urban heat islands (UHIs). [8] An urban heat island is a phenomenon where these surface temperature deviations and air in the lowest levels of the atmosphere are concentrated in urban areas and those immediately ...