Islands in the Sun

Most urban areas are warming at twice the rate of the planet as a whole, thanks to a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. Heat waves are expected to become increasingly frequent as climate changes.

Islands in the Sun seeks to better understand the mechanisms behind urban heat islands with a goal of finding ways to lessen their effects through landscape design. Given that more than half the global population lives in cities, there is urgent need to understand and mitigate urban heat island effects, especially during heat wave events when the risk of heat-related illness and mortality can increase dramatically.

The research team is:

  1. quantifying factors that contribute to urban heat islands in the world’s 100 largest metropolitan areas;
  2. developing a model to assess heat-island-mitigating landscape design strategies; and
  3. evaluating the effectiveness of different engineering and landscape design solutions in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

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