The peak bloom of the cherry blossoms has arrived in Washington, D.C. Seeing the Capitol in the spring of 2023 was a visual feast for me. However, nothing compares to Japan’s stunning Sakura flowers. Be it the brighter Kawazu-zakura variety or the Yoshino cherry, these blossoms draw thousands of visitors from all over the world.
Perhaps what most makes Japan visually striking is the contrast between its bustling cities and peaceful rural areas punctuated by views of majestic mountains. Another difference in these two varied locales is their thermal profiles.
Temperatures are typically higher in the concrete jungles of Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, and Nagoya than in the countryside. The well-known Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon is the cause of this disparity. To put it simply, urban centers get hotter because heat is retained by artificial surfaces like the steel, concrete, and asphalt of buildings and pavement. This is compounded by a myriad of heat-generating sources like air conditioning units and vehicles.
Tokyo stands out as the Japanese city with the highest UHI effect, followed by Osaka, Yokohama, Nagoya, and Fukuoka. These cities’ large populations, dense infrastructure, and limited vegetation elevate temperatures, with Tokyo’s scale and Osaka’s industrial density making them particularly notable.
Despite this phenomenon being well known, there have been decades of drumbeats from climate alarmists pointing to every heatwave and temperature spike as the result of villainous greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. The UHI effect, irrespective of its widely documented role in affecting local temperatures, is relegated in media reports to a footnote’s status – if mentioned at all. This isn’t an oversight; it’s a deliberate omission of a fact that undermines the climate cult’s sacred narrative of greenhouse gas-driven doom.
A study entitled "Urban Warming in Japanese Cities and Its Relation to Climate Change Monitoring" discusses how many of the urban thermometers are located in dense concrete jungles.
The researchers linked the UHI effect to temperature increases of a few degrees Celsius per century in large Japanese cities. In some, the increase in annual extreme minimum temperatures exceeded 10 degrees Celsius per century.
Analyzing the UHI phenomenon in the Osaka region, scientists found that the temperature difference due to urbanization was broadly 3-4 degrees Celsius during early night hours. A second study compared temperature data from Osaka’s urban weather station to the coastal Yumeshima site, documenting a consistent UHI effect of 1-2 degrees Celsius in central Osaka, with peaks up to 3 degrees Celsius during summer heatwaves.
And this is true across the world. Research covering 141 cities in India revealed that urbanization had led to a 60% increase in warming. In India’s capital of Delhi, a temperature change of 30 to 35% in the past several decades is due to UHI.
The media ill serves the public by failing to put sweltering urban days in the context of the UHI effect. Typical consumers of news are not climate scientists, nor should they have to be. Yet, they are fed a steady diet of greenhouse gas hyperbole that has nothing to do with cityscapes that artificially amplify already stifling heat for urban dwellers.
Yes, there has been a natural warming during the past 150 years or so, a trend that began with the waning of the Little Ice Age in the 18th century. But UHI contributions to local measurements are quite significant and remain largely unaccounted for.
Make no mistake, summer heat in Asian cities is extreme, and I have experienced it personally, even working on heat adaptation projects in India. But to blame human greenhouse gas emissions for baking urbanites is pure ignorance, and ignorance is not bliss.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about the effects of climate change.
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