Urban Heat Mapping results reveal rise in metro temperatures

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Oklahoma City's Office of Sustainability released the results of their Urban Heat Island Mapping Campaign they took in August.

Volunteers collected temperature data around 350 square miles to help the city learn where the hottest areas are.

The results yielded a lot of information, but really highlighted a couple major data points.

Oklahoma City is heating up on average more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit per year and Tom Bowman, program planner for the Office of Sustainability, says it will affect future developments across the metro.

"The way we build, the way we cover land all has a contributing factor to this phenomenon called the Urban Heat Island effect."

While development and growth is paramount for any city to strive, as buildings go up and concrete gets laid down, more heat is getting trapped in the city.

Bowman also said this happens throughout the night, which leads to warmer mornings, causes warmer days and increases our electricity demand.

The Urban Heat Island Mapping Campaign was designed to highlight the hot spots around the metro, assess why they are hotter than other areas and figure out a solution.

Bowman said if we could look at an average increase of about 2.6 degrees Fahrenheit and we look back at our historical weather, we've increased by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit or so over the course of 50 years.

Bowman says more than 4 percent of Oklahoma City's entire area is parking lots, causing a large increase in temperature from ground level.

"What was surprising for me was seeing northwestern Oklahoma City, because there was so much red, there was so much heat built up over there," Sarah Terry-Cobo, Associate Planner for the Office of Sustainability in OKC said. "That's an area where the city has seen a trend of a lot of development."

Results showed a 14 degree difference between the hottest areas and coolest. Now they plan on presenting the data to the planning commission.

"A presentation to the planning commission showing what we found, so as they look at new developments and things like that, they can kind of keep that in mind in terms of what to approve, where to go next that sort of thing," Terry-Cobo said. "It also really helps us inform our zoning code updates and building code updates."

Sarah says the hope is the city will look at this data and find ways to cool off areas across the city, change the way they go about new developments and add more shade to spots that are exposed to the sun all day long.