A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
975 entries
urban heat island
The elevated temperatures in a city compared to the surrounding countryside, caused by impervious surfaces absorbing and re-radiating solar energy, waste heat from buildings and vehicles, and the absence of vegetation. A city can be 5–10°F warmer than the farmland around it. The city makes its own climate, and it’s hotter.
Etymology
“Urban” from Latin “urbanus,” from “urbs” (city); “heat” from Old English “hætu”; “island” from Old English “igland.” The phrase is a 20th-century meteorological coinage, with the underlying phenomenon documented as early as the 1810s by British scientist Luke Howard, who noted London’s city center ran warmer than its surroundings.