490 - Urban Heat Islands: Why Is It So Much Hotter in Cities Than Suburbs?
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2022
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
Lack of green space, abundant concrete, and building materials that trap heat all contribute to why cities are often as much as 10 degrees warmer than surrounding suburbs. Johns Hopkins earth and planetary sciences professor Dr. Ben Zaitchik talks with Stephanie Desmon about urban heat islands which disproportionately affect poorer and minority communities, why heat is known as "the silent killer," and how investments in urban heat mitigation can help make neighborhoods stronger and safer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:12.0 | I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, |
| 0:17.1 | and a former health commissioner here in Baltimore. |
| 0:19.7 | Our goal is to bring evidence and experience to illuminate critical public health issues. |
| 0:25.4 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhh.edu. |
| 0:31.6 | That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:37.7 | Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith-Rogers, producer of public health on call. Today, Stephanie Desmond |
| 0:42.4 | talks to Ben Zichick, a Johns Hopkins Earth scientist who focuses on the significant and growing |
| 0:48.5 | health burden of extreme heat. They discuss how climate change is disproportionately |
| 0:53.2 | impacting people of color, notably |
| 0:55.8 | those who live in cities, and what steps can be taken to cool our urban areas down. Let's listen. |
| 1:03.7 | Ben Zychik, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. So climate change |
| 1:09.0 | disproportionately affects people of color. And today I want to talk |
| 1:13.5 | about sort of why that is. And I guess my first question is, why is it hotter in the city than the |
| 1:19.8 | suburbs? So there are several reasons why cities end up being hotter than the surrounding area. |
| 1:25.2 | One that we all hear a lot about is simply the lack of green space. |
| 1:29.7 | When you have a whole bunch of concrete, you know, your urban jungle of asphalt and buildings, |
| 1:34.1 | and you don't have green spaces in terms of parks, open fields, street trees, you end up with |
| 1:40.5 | less ability to take moisture in for rainfall to get into the soil and then to be evaporated |
| 1:46.8 | slowly back into the atmosphere, which can help cool things down. |
| 1:50.0 | Instead, what you end up with are these surfaces that are fairly dry and there's not an ability |
| 1:54.3 | to get moisture into the air. |
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