The hottest large city in the United States is Phoenix. In 2020, almost 200 people died from the extreme heat there. Because it is in a desert climate, the daytime temperatures can rocket upward, putting its citizens at extreme risk. Phoenix is using a variety of techniques to try to reduce the temperatures in the city, including planting more trees (where they can, because trees need water) or changing the color of pavement and rooftops to reflect more sunlight and cool them down.
While the Southeast has higher humidity and lower temperatures than Phoenix and the Southwest, it is also being impacted by rising temperatures and will have to come up with new ways to deal with the rising heat. Some techniques that Phoenix is using may be useful to us in the future, especially in larger cities like Atlanta and Charlotte where the rising heat is being made worse by the urban heat islands those cities produce. You can read more about what Phoenix is doing to fight the heat at America’s hottest city is nearly unlivable in summer. Can cooling technologies save it? (yahoo.com).
