Authoritative reports show that building electricity consumption can increase steadily once temperature values within urban regions exceed their rural values. This study first assesses the role of higher temperatures in the variation of Bahrain’s domestic electricity consumption for...

Two land development scenarios based on the Central Florida Regional Growth Vision projection for 2050 were used to explore the developments’ potential influence on regional climate. One scenario is a widespread suburban land development plan, and the other is a higher density urban...

Solar reflectance of buildings’ envelope and urban paving represents an important optic-energetic property for the characterization of building energy performance for cooling and to reduce the urban heat island effect. Together with the emissivity, it represents the main feature contributing...

More recent UK climatic data for use in the design of naturally ventilated buildings show that passive stack ventilation alone is unlikely to maintain summertime comfort in a new University College London building within the London city heat island. A stack ventilation strategy developed by the...

The urban heat island (UHI), together with summertime heat waves, foster’s biophysical hazards such as heat stress, air pollution, and associated public health problems. Mitigation strategies such as increased vegetative cover and higher albedo surface materials have been proposed. Atlanta,...

Two strong heat waves in the summer of 2003 determined elevated heat discomfort conditions all across the Western Europe. In this context, the analysis of hourly Heat Index values in the city of Naples (Southern Italy) showed prolonged heat discomfort conditions during the second half of June...

Projections of future climate suggest increases in extreme temperatures particularly in mid latitudes. In addition, the effect of heat waves, which are becoming a major “summer killer”, is exacerbated in urban areas owing to the heat island effect. Air conditioning (A/C) is a key parameter...

Cities occupy 2% of the earth's surface but their inhabitants consume 75% of the world's energy resources. Under certain conditions, the heat from solar radiation and different urban activities can make city temperatures rise in certain areas, simply because of the way in which a city is...