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    Heat Island Study Reveals Dramatic Temperature Difference Between Columbus Neighborhoods

    This summer’s widespread American Electric Power blackout, which left 170,000 Columbus residents without electricity in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave, left a mark on GreenSpot coordinator David Celebrezze. 

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    “Our house got up to I think 89, 90 degrees at nighttime,” said Celebrezze of the June 14-16 blackout. “I don’t think anybody wants to go through that again.” 

    But even without a blackout, Columbus is the fastest-growing urban heat island in the country, and the city’s ambient temperature can vary dramatically between neighborhoods. Two months after the infamous AEP blackout, 78 volunteers drove around Columbus for a whole day, taking more than 100,000 individual temperature readings in order to build a comprehensive map of the city’s heat islands. The results of that study, released this afternoon by Sustainable Columbus in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and CAPA Strategies, reveal that temperatures in Columbus can vary as much as 13 degrees between neighborhoods at the same time of day. 

    A heat island is created when an urban area has more hard surfaces to absorb and retain heat, but does not have as much tree cover to provide shade. As Celebrezze put it, “We’ve all walked down a street that doesn’t have any trees on it in the hot days of summer, right? And then we’ve all walked down a street that has trees on it in the hot days of summer, and you can tell the difference.” 

    Neighborhoods like North Linden and Clintonville, which have lots of tree canopy and greenspace, retain much less heat throughout the day than places like Downtown Columbus, Franklinton and Hilltop, which have dense residential areas, large commercial properties, little tree cover and wide swaths of hard surfaces. Given those differences, it was not unexpected that there would be some temperature variance between neighborhoods. But according to Sustainable Columbus Assistant Director Erin Beck, “Just how wide that disparity is was a really striking takeaway of the study.” 

    The temperature disparity would likely not be so pronounced without Columbus’ history of racial and economic segregation, which has led to notably low tree canopy coverage in portions of redlined neighborhoods like Franklinton, Milo-Grogan and South Linden. In 2020, the Franklin County Board of Health declared racism a public health crisis, and according to Franklin County Public Health Commissioner Joe Mazzola, the fact that a poorer neighborhood of color could be as much as 13 degrees hotter than a whiter, wealthier neighborhood fits perfectly with that declaration. 

    Excessive heat can lead to dehydration and disrupted sleeping patterns. It can exacerbate health problems in vulnerable individuals—particularly pregnant people, young children, older adults, people with cardiovascular or respiratory illnesses, and people who work outside for much of the day. The health risk associated with excessive heat is why Franklin County Public Health became involved in the heat mapping project and will be using the data from this study in its next community health improvement plan, expected to be released in spring 2023. 

    “Our declaration regarding racism as a public health crisis really was a call to action for us to make sure that we were engaging in projects like this to identify those health disparities, to identify potential policies and practices that might be contributing to this and really identify ways that we can address it,” said Mazzola. “So certainly I think this falls right in line with those conversations. We want to be very intentional in how we are proposing solutions and this report really helps us with that and identifying where those inequities are and the public health implications of it.” 

    The data from this study is expected to help the city mitigate the heat island effect in two ways—by identifying opportunities for increasing the tree canopy under the Urban Forestry Master Plan, and by identifying locations for resilience hubs under the Columbus Climate Action Plan

    Celebrezze defines a “resilience hub” as a location that can serve as a cooling center or a shelter during heat waves and power outages, or distribute food and water during emergency situations. During the AEP blackout in June, for example, Columbus Recreation and Parks opened cooling centers and extended the hours at public pools around the city. 

    “In our Climate Action Plan, we want to make sure that every resident is within a 15 minute walk of a resilience hub,” said Celebrezze. “So this information that we’re getting from this is one dataset that’s going to inform us on where those resilience hubs go.” 

    As for the tree canopy, Celebrezze said, “Certainly in Downtown Columbus, with a skyscraper, you’re probably not going to plant a tree on top of that. But over in Franklinton, on the West Side, there’s a lot of opportunity for tree plantings, so that’s what we want to focus on.” 

    To complete the heat mapping project, Sustainable Columbus and GreenSpot partnered with the Bronzeville Growers Market, OSU’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, the Columbus City Council, Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed, Franklin County Public Health, the Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District, Green Columbus and the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission. Columbus was one of 16 cities to conduct a heat island study with funds from NOAA, and Celebrezze presented details of the Columbus study in a NOAA webinar last month. 

    Click here to access the full report.

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