Los Angeles faced its most challenging summer this year with temperatures hitting the roof. It was a record that the city has only seen once before. In more than 140 years of record-keeping, Downtown LA has been hit with temperatures above 110 only twice.
As per a Washington Post analysis released sometime back, the average annual temperatures in Los Angeles County have risen 2.3 degrees Celsius, or 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit, between 1895 and 2018. LA is one of 71 counties in the United States where temperatures jumped more than 2 degrees Celsius during that time. This according to climate scientists, is a threshold that could have disastrous global implications.
According to a study released by UCLA in 2015, the number of days per year when temperatures in the Downtown area climbed higher than 95 degrees could nearly triple by 2050.
One step closer to being 1.6ºC cooler by 2050.
v/ @wef cc @HaroldSinnott @FrRonconi @alvinfoo @jerome_joffre @andi_staub @ImMBM @helene_wpli @Ronald_vanLoon @TopCyberNews @YuHelenYu @Paula_Piccard @JonathanAufray @kashthefuturist pic.twitter.com/MQCNBMLK79— Christine Boursin 🌐 (@chboursin) September 2, 2019
But the city has woken up to the perils of the heat wave and has come up with innovative ideas to fight it.
The World Economic Forum has released a video that outlines these measures. They are building reflective roads and innovative cool roofs. The goal – make the city 1.6 degrees cooler!
By painting over the black streets with a coating, they hope to reflect sunlight and bring down road temperature by 5.5 degree Celsius. Massive tree planting drive that will see 90,000 trees coming up in the course of the next three years is another method that is being adopted.
An army of volunteers have been working closely on this project.
Watch the video to see how these exciting plans can make the city better and how it’s a learning for other cities worldwide to emulate.