Penn IUR Events Address Extreme Heat and Air Quality

As the global climate meetings (COP27) opened in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, a new report revealed that the past eight years have been the hottest the world has experienced. What’s worse, the extreme heat that comes with globally rising temperatures is felt most acutely in cities, where 7 billion people live, due to urban heat island effect. 

Extreme heat isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s deadly. It kills more people than any other kind of climate hazard; and in many countries, extreme heat kills more than all other climate hazards combined. 

And yet, extreme heat has only recently gotten the attention it deserves as a serious threat to people and the planet. In 2021, the Adrienne Arsht - Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock) funded a new kind of leadership role in cities – Chief Heat Officers – to bring attention to and manage the problem of extreme heat. The organization has funded the appointment of eight CHOs so far, in cities from Miami to Athens.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association is partnering with American cities to better understand urban heat island effect and track urban air quality. In July 2022, Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences worked with local community leaders to track the city’s heat and air quality. 

Penn Institute for Urban Research hosted two recent events to spread understanding of how urban leaders are addressing heat around the world.

Chief Heat Officers Take the Lead on Climate Change

To contend with extreme heat, Chief Heat Officers are deploying a range of approaches to raise awareness of the threat of extreme heat, improve the resilience of urban landscapes, and help keep residents cool.

In the summer of 2021, record high temperatures brought drought and hundreds of fires to the Athens region. “It was kind of post-apocalyptic those days in Athens,” Global Chief Heat Officer, Eleni Myrivili, said. The extreme heat coincided with Myrivili’s appointment as a Chief Heat Officer that July, and she was able to begin quickly implementing new measures to address a threat that she contends could make Athens uninhabitable if not properly managed. 

Since then, Athens has focused on informing the public about the threats of extreme heat. The city now names heat waves to heighten awareness about them. This year Athens deployed a three-tier alert system to help people understand not just how hot it will be, but what health threats the heat could bring to human lives. 

In Monterrey, Mexico, extreme heat has caused a water crisis in the city. The city has responded with an ambitious plan to create “green corridors” that will help provide shade, retain groundwater, and prevent water shortages. Additionally, the city is creating a 20-acre public space, Parque Lago, that, with the corridors, will add thousands of trees to cool the city and add shade. 

While these ambitious initiatives often rely on large amounts of funding, in Santiago, Chief Heat Officer Cristina Huidobro pointed out the importance of being resourceful since there is a lot of “energy poverty” in the city. “We don't have big budgets. We have a lot of restrictions on governance and funding,” she said. But she hopes to inform residents of traditional ways of keeping cool, like white roofs, shutters, and cross-ventilation instead of air-conditioning, which can be beyond the budget of the average Chilean. “What if our cooling centers are churches? We have lots of them and they're really cool inside.” 

For all the chief heat officers, having a cohort of peers who are similarly focused on extreme heat has been essential to sharing best practices. “If the cities are part of the problem of climate change and emissions, how can we make cities part of the solution?” Huidobro asked. 

How Philadelphia is Mapping Heat and Air Quality

Philadelphia just recorded its warmest summer ever. To better understand how to mitigate and adapt to this weather, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration has been funding cities to study heat across their municipal boundaries. In 2022, Philadelphia was one of 16 American cities to perform a study, and one of two cities to measure air quality as well. 

Over the course of one day at the end of July, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University led a campaign to measure urban heat island effect across the city. With 50 community volunteers driving cars with mounted sensors along prescribed routes, the group was able to measure heat and air three times over the course of one day. Richard Johnson, Director of Community Science at the Academy, said that Philadelphia’s campaign was unique in that a majority of the routes were driven by groups working in their own neighborhoods, including community leaders, college students and retirees. “The goal was to raise understanding of communities’ experience with heat and air pollution and explore equitable solutions to these issues,” Johnson said. 

In Philadelphia, the temperature can vary up to 22 degrees from one neighborhood to the next. Low-income communities are disproportionately affected by extreme heat, due to their lack of tree cover and green space. The results from the heat and air mapping campaign will give Philadelphia a better sense of how neighborhoods differ and what new interventions might be needed to address heat and air quality in the future. 

One local community leader, Meeka Outlaw shared her experience working with the Academy on the campaign. She grew up in Grays Ferry, where many people have attributed their elevated rates of asthma and cancer to air pollution from nearby refineries. 

“Doing this project, a few things came full circle for me,” Outlaw said. It raised her awareness of the poor air quality in her neighborhood. “Doing this project made me see how important it is to know what you’re breathing in every day.” The project also made her aware of the ways that climate change is altering the city. She realizes that her own children have never experienced a snowstorm. “Not the kind where you can jump off a stoop and fall deep into the snow,” she said.

Outlaw now sees herself partnering with other local organizations, disseminating information to Philadelphians about how to get involved in projects like the heat and air quality survey, and encouraging others to focus on nature and connect with green space. 

“Having Meeka’s perspective was such a huge value in this project,” Johnson said.  “[Community leaders] are the ones carrying on this work once we have this information about heat and air quality.”