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Keeping Cities Cool in a Warmer Future

Jun 14, 2024

Learn how cities like Singapore are adapting to extreme heat by creating detailed digital twins of the city for testing new cooling methods. Get insights on how urban planning and green spaces can combat rising temperatures in cities worldwide.

18:38

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Quick takeaways

Cities are modifying aspects to combat extreme heat, like creating digital twins for testing cooling methods.

Urban areas face Urban Heat Island Effect, prompting initiatives such as planting trees and developing heat-reflective paint.

Deep dives

Urban Heat Island Effect and Impacts on Cities

Urban areas experience the Urban Heat Island Effect, where cities are hotter than surrounding areas due to factors like buildings and pavement retaining heat. This effect worsens as global temperatures rise. The impact on cities includes longer heat seasons, more intense heatwaves, and increased health risks like heat-related illnesses and deaths.

Addressing Urban Heat in Cities, with a Focus on Singapore

9min

Developing a Digital Urban Climate Twin for Singapore

7min

2023 was the world’s hottest year on record, and temperatures are expected to continue heating up. Cities, where more than half of the world lives, are contending with this extreme heat. But some places, such as Singapore, are looking for ways to modify aspects of their cities to make them more comfortable for people to live. The Cooling Singapore project is creating a hyper detailed digital twin of the city-state to be able to test the effectiveness of new methods the city would want to implement. WSJ’s Alex Ossola explains what they’ve learned, and how it can help us understand how more cities in the future might make changes to combat heat.

What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify , or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com

Further reading:

The Cooling Singapore 2.0 project, funded by the Singapore Nat ional Research Foundation, is led by the Singapore ETH Centre in partnership with Cambridge CARES, the National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore Management University (SMU), the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), and TUMCREATE (established by the Technical University of Munich).

2023 Was the Hottest Year on Record

Earth Just Had Its Hottest Month Ever. How Six Cities Are Coping.

How Reflective Paint Brings Down Scorching City Temperatures

These Photos Show How Urban Growth Fuels Extreme Heat

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