How cities worldwide respond to the 2024 hottest temperatures
New data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (CS3) reveals that the summer of 2024 was the hottest on record globally.
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Greening schoolyards in New York to combat heat
New York is greening the city, starting in its schoolyards. The city is nicknamed the "concrete jungle," and it is overheating due to the urban heat island (UHI), which is worsened by climate change impacts. The city is begging for cool, shaded green spaces where locals of all ages can enjoy and find relief from the heat.
The city has 220 public schools, and thanks to the Trust for Public Land's (TPL's) Green Community Schoolyards programme, the asphalt playgrounds of these schools will be transformed into parks and green spaces, starting from one school to the next. TPL envisions that beyond being creational and community-building opportunities, these transformed green spaces will help mitigate the increasingly extreme heat and flooding impacting New York City.
The WRI article notes that New York City is over 70% waterproof, which means the city has paved most of its land and prevented stormwater from soaking into the ground. Without enough soil and natural terrain to absorb water quickly, cities are at higher risk of flooding during extreme rain events.
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