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Urban areas usually experience the urban heat island (UHI) effect, that is, they are significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most apparent when winds are weak, under block conditions, noticeably during the summer and winter. The main cause of the UHI effect is from the modification of land surfaces while waste heat generated by energy usage is a secondary contributor. A study has shown that heat islands can be affected by proximity to different types of land cover, so that proximity to barren land causes urban land to become hotter and proximity to vegetation makes it cooler. As a population center grows, it tends to expand its area and increase its average temperature. The term heat island is also used; the term can be used to refer to any area that is relatively hotter than the surrounding, but generally refers to human-disturbed areas. Urban areas take up about 0.5% of the Earth's land surface but occupy more than half of the world's population.
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A heat pump is a device that uses work to transfer heat from a cool space to a warm space by transferring thermal energy using a refrigeration cycle, cooling the cool space and warming the warm space. In cold weather a heat pump can move heat from the cool outdoors to warm a house; the pump may also be designed to move heat from the house to the warmer outdoors in warm weather. As they transfer heat rather than generating heat, they are more energy-efficient than other ways of heating or cooling a home.
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The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the sixth in a series of reports which assess scientific, technical, and socio-economic information concerning climate change. Three Working Groups covered the following topics: The Physical Science Basis (WGI); Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (WGII); Mitigation of Climate Change (WGIII). Of these, the first study was published in 2021, the second report February 2022, and the third in April 2022. The final synthesis report was finished in March 2023.
Eleni Myrivili is the United Nations Human Settlements Programme's Chief Heat Officer (CHO), the City of Athens Chief Resilience Officer, a member of the European Union Mission Board for Adaptation to Climate Change Mission, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Adrienne Arsht – Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council, a tenured assistant professor at the Department of Cultural Technology & Communications at the University of the Aegean, and a former Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
References
- ↑ Dehghan, Saeed Kamali (2021-11-15). "Stop talking, start acting, says Africa's first extreme heat official". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 2023-01-06. Retrieved 2023-01-06.
- ↑ Yeung, Peter (2022-01-21). "Africa's First Heat Officer Faces a Daunting Task". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on 2022-11-19. Retrieved 2023-01-06.
- ↑ Ramirez, Rachel (2022-07-20). "Faced with more deadly heat waves, US cities are taking an unprecedented step". CNN. Archived from the original on 2023-01-06. Retrieved 2023-01-06.
- ↑ Visram, Talib (7 October 2022). "Meet the 7 Chief Heat Officers who are making their cities more resilient". Fast Company . Archived from the original on 31 December 2022. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
- ↑ Moloney, Anastasia (2022-11-09). "How 'chief heat officers' keep cities cool as the world warms". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2023-01-06. Retrieved 2023-01-06.
- ↑ McLeod, Kathy Baughman (2022-05-26). "Every City Needs a Chief Heat Officer". Foreign Affairs . ISSN 0015-7120. Archived from the original on 2023-01-06. Retrieved 2023-01-06.
- ↑ "First-ever Global Chief Heat Officer Announced at World Urban Forum" (PDF) (Press release). Katowice, Poland: UN-Habitat and Arsht-Rock Resilience Center. 2022-06-27.
- ↑ "Η Αθήνα αναλαμβάνει πρωτοβουλία για την αντιμετώπιση των πολύ υψηλών θερμοκρασιών λόγω κλιματικής αλλαγής" (Press release). Δήμος Αθηναίων. 2021-07-23.
