By Jack Dini ——Bio and Archives--April 17, 2024
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An urban heat island (UHI) is an urban area of metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most apparent when winds are weak. UHI is most noticeable during the summer and winter. The main cause of the urban heat island effect is the dense concentration of pavement, buildings, and other surfaces that absorb and retain heat. This effect increases energy costs (e.g, for air conditioning), air pollution levels, and heat-related illness and mortality. About 80% of the US population lives in cities, where the urban heat island can worsen heat extremes. (1)
An estimated 22% of the US warming trends, 1895-2023 are due to localized urban heat island effects. And the effect is much larger in urban locations. This impacts how we should be discussing recent 'record hot' temperatures at cities. Some of those would likely not be records if UHI effects were taken into account. The key point is that increasing warmth cannot be wholly blamed on climate change. (2)
Although 2023's summer was hotter than normal, as the mainstream media voluminously reported, three recent papers published in peer reviewed journals have concluded that much of the hyped heat was a result of the urban heat island effect, with comprised ground-based temperature stations in expanding urban and suburban areas biasing the local and thus global averaged temperatures upward. (3)
These three papers, after examining copious amounts of data, conclude that as much as 40 percent of the recorded temperature increase this summer was attributable to the UHI effect. (4-6)
These papers are not the only studies implicating UHIs in the recent reported rise in temperature that so alarms the IPCC and the mainstream media.
Research from scientists at the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville indicates that summer warming since 1885 has been exaggerated by as much as 100 percent.
Location is important. Mark Adams writes, "Although urban areas occupy only about 4% of the land surface, most weather monitoring stations are located in urban areas. Those same regions have an abundance of concrete and asphalt, both of which have remarkable heat absorbing properties. The result is that these urban islands are warmer than their rural counterparts.
This raises an important question: if the majority of temperature readings are taken in areas of inherently higher temperature how much does this skew the claimed rise in temperature?" (3)
Tim Benson and Anthony Watts updated earlier research confirming the vast majority of surface temperature stations (96 percent) of those surveyed) used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to record and report temperatures in the United States, are corrupted by the UHI effect, failing to meet NOAA's own standards for trustworthy temperature data. (7)
In short, mounting amounts of research confirm that surface station temperatures are badly compromised and shouldn't be used to raise the alarm about a supposed unnatural increase in temperature, the rates of rising temperature, or anthropogenic climate change more generally. Alarm is unwarranted based on real-world data.
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Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology. He has also written for American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, and Hawaii Reporter.