A NOAA researcher is concerned for some of DC’s poorest now that the results are in from a D.C. heat study. He and a group of citizen scientists surveyed the District’s “Heat Islands” last August and they match up with some of DC’s poorest neighborhoods.
WASHINGTON — In August, a team of citizen scientists mapped-out which DC neighborhoods are most dangerously hot when temperatures rise, and after examining the results, they’re concerned for DC’s poorest residents.
After hours of mapping-out more than 75,000 temperature data points, the result is a district heat map showing Washington, D.C.’s Urban Heat Island Effect. The date surveyed was August 28, 2018.
The citizen scientists drove the same route (aka traverse) three different times the day they measured.
They found a striking temperature difference between certain parts of town.
Most of Northwest D.C. stayed in the 84-94 degree zone.
On the other side, a large swath of Northeast, the National Mall area and parts of Southeast, like Anacostia, hit 94–102-degrees.
David Herring says one of the most surprising and significant finding was the potential 17-degree temperature difference.
“It might be 86 degrees in one part of the city, it could be as hot as 103 degrees in other parts of the city during exactly the same time,” said Herring.
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