As the United States suffers through a summer of record-breaking heat, new research shows that temperatures on a scorching summer day can vary as much as 20 degrees across different parts of the same city, with poor or minority neighborhoods often bearing the brunt of that heat. — The New York Times
Using a series of dramatic, color-coded maps, The New York Times highlights the growing disparity between exactly which neighborhoods in America feel the ever-increasing urban heat island effect. The report details stark temperature differences between the neighborhoods of several major cities, where temperatures can vary by as much as 20-degrees, depending on layout, urban design, and topography.
In Baltimore, for example, temperatures can range from 87-degrees in the city's wealthy suburban districts, where tree-lined streets and yards help to mitigate the heat island effect, to upwards of 101-degrees in the city's working class inner core neighborhoods, where tightly-clustered row houses and surface parking lots amplify the sun's power.
In Portland, Oregon, the temperature discrepancy between the city's leafy, park-adjacent westside and the industrial areas surrounding the airport in the northeast follows a similar trajectory. The city's massive Forest Park produces, according to the report, an eight mile stretch of cooler temperatures.
In Albuquerque, on the other hand, elevation makes more of a difference than tree cover. There, the city's Northeast Heights area, parked higher up from the city's relatively low-lying, river-adjacent western neighborhoods, can see temperatures nearly 12-degrees lower than Albuquerque's downtown.
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