Humidity makes Shanghai’s heat more unbearable
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“My office felt like a steamboat on Monday morning,” Chinese influencer Bi Dao wrote in a social media post in August. He got a drink from a so-called cold water dispenser – it was 40.8°C (105°F). Bi, who lives in Hangzhou, a regional capital on China’s east coast, decided to wander around the city with a temperature gun and point it at things to find out exactly how hot it had become. “The ground was 72.6°C, the seat of a shared bike was 56.5°C, the handrail in the subway station was 45°C, even the tree bark was 38.7°C,” he wrote. He ended his post by thanking Willis Carrier for inventing the air conditioner.
Hangzhou is known for its beautiful lake, grand pagoda and rolling green tea farms – not for the heat. But what Bi witnessed was just one of 60 “high temperature days” – days with temperatures above 35°C – that have roiled the city and its 12.5 million residents this year. Hangzhou is not alone. Many cities around the world are feeling the heat. Things are getting so bad that more and more people are experiencing temperatures beyond human capacity.
Such conditions already kill about half a million people every year. This will inevitably increase as climate change increases the number and intensity of heat waves around the world. Cities are on the front lines of this evolving crisis. And China’s vast, densely packed megacities are leading the way. And to give an impression of what we are doing…
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