Heat Generated in Cities Impacts Climate 1,000 Miles Away
- 11 years ago
Heat generated in cities is leading to warmer climate 1,000 miles away.
The heat that is created by cars and people in major cities is affecting the weather up to a thousand miles away and is playing a part in global warming.
Scientists have long used the ‘urban heat effect’ to explain why cities are hotter than outlying suburbs and rural areas. The higher concentration of people and cars consuming energy, and a higher building density reflecting the sun’s rays, all convert that energy into heat. New research however, shows the global jet stream plays a significant role in heating faraway rural areas.
When the heat from major metropolitan cities rises and meets the cool global jet stream circulating the northern Hemisphere, it pushes that stream upwards, allowing warm Equatorial heat to flow further northward than usual.
A new study from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego using data from the National Center for Atmospheric Research shows that heat from cities like San Francisco and New York, are making it warmer at an average of about one degree Celsius in places like Siberia and northern Canada, thousands of miles away.
Scientists think that this affect might be adding to global warming along with the greenhouse gas effect.
The heat that is created by cars and people in major cities is affecting the weather up to a thousand miles away and is playing a part in global warming.
Scientists have long used the ‘urban heat effect’ to explain why cities are hotter than outlying suburbs and rural areas. The higher concentration of people and cars consuming energy, and a higher building density reflecting the sun’s rays, all convert that energy into heat. New research however, shows the global jet stream plays a significant role in heating faraway rural areas.
When the heat from major metropolitan cities rises and meets the cool global jet stream circulating the northern Hemisphere, it pushes that stream upwards, allowing warm Equatorial heat to flow further northward than usual.
A new study from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego using data from the National Center for Atmospheric Research shows that heat from cities like San Francisco and New York, are making it warmer at an average of about one degree Celsius in places like Siberia and northern Canada, thousands of miles away.
Scientists think that this affect might be adding to global warming along with the greenhouse gas effect.