Nights are Getting Hotter
The Art
The Science
“Each year, heat kills far more Americans than hurricanes, floods, tornadoes or the cold. When it’s hot, our hearts work hard to cool us, redirecting blood to the surface of our skin. But when nights are hot, our hearts don’t get a break, working on overdrive and depriving other organs of blood…”
“…This June and July, nights in Las Vegas stayed above 79 degrees for all but seven days. As the climate continues to warm, air-conditioning — especially while trying to sleep — becomes a basic need, not just a luxury. And hot nights are something more people are experiencing: No American major metro area has grown as much as Las Vegas has over the last three decades. That growth has translated to more roads, more cars, more houses — across a sprawling area — creating one of the most intense urban heat island effects in the United States. At night, the heat trapped inside asphalt and buildings exhales back into neighborhoods, making the city 20 to 25 degrees hotter than the surrounding desert.
Such trapped heat adds to warming caused by climate change, resulting in even more extreme temperatures…. ‘
In some of the fastest-growing major metros in the country — Sun Belt cities that also include Austin, Raleigh, Orlando, Phoenix and Atlanta — nights are getting a lot hotter. Populations have doubled or more over a generation, with the number of abnormally hot nights rising at similar rates.
The collision of these two forces has set some of these cities on a dangerous course, one with little relief, even in the dead of night.”
Nights in Las Vegas Are Becoming Dangerously Hot, By Ronda Hansen and Aatish Bhatia, New York Times Aug 11, 202
The Art was created by placing the graphs on top of each other to show the combined trends.
