Mapping heat islands in US is a growing problem

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Mapping heat islands in US is a growing problem

SILVER SPRING: The home screen of the phone shows 32 degrees Celsius in Silver Spring, a suburb of Washington, on a mid-August day. The reality is more complex in terms of heat exposure, not all parts of the city are the same.

Maria Velez, 53, knows she is lucky to live next to a creek. Other neighborhoods with small apartment buildings are much more built up and less green, a stone's throw from her house.

It's the perfect recipe for creating heat islands, recording much higher temperatures sometimes across just a few streets.

The climate crisis is making the phenomenon more dangerous and more dangerous.

The meteorological phenomenon that kills the most is heat in the United States - where hurricanes, tornadoes and floods are a fact of life.

Velez, a resident of Montgomery County, decided to participate in a campaign aimed at mapping these heat islands in Montgomery County, where she lives, just north of the American capital.

The initiative has been led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA, which has made it possible to study some 70 counties across the country with the help of residents.

Velez, a professor of criminology, told AFP that I signed up right away. This is exactly what the county should be doing. We should be learning about what's going on with climate change, and what the impacts are. She and her husband hang a sensor, which looks like a can on the end of a rod, out of the passenger side of their grey family car. When turned on, the device records the temperature, humidity, time, and exact position every second.

The couple was assigned a route of about 17 km, to be covered at no more than 55 kmh, covering a large part of the city.

Within an hour they return to the starting point, where county employees await them, retrieving the sensor and noting any difficulties encountered - in their case, a failed roundabout exit that led them to make the turn twice.

T-shirts with the words Street Scientist are handed out to the volunteers.