Today is the highest heat content in the Gulf on record

But fortunately, the climate change-denying Toms are also in the minority nationwide.

Note Tom's lying, disingenuous, dishonest, dissembling, evasive language. He pretends that anyone warning us about the consequences of climate change is saying that the world will end. NO, stupid Tom. The world will continue to exist. No one has said otherwise. But there WILL be widespread suffering and death. It's already started, stupid fucking lying dipwad Tom.

Tom also thinks that we don't know what global temperatures were prior to 1880. That's fucking hilarious! And I'm not going to enlighten him. 

Oh, and stupid Tom thinks that sustainable energy technology "does not exist." What kind of impermeable bubble does he live in?

So I've been drinking a little bit tonight and against my better judgement, I am going to jump in with some common drunken sense and  hopefully someone can clearify without a lot of insults or Trump hate.   Big cities are much much warmer  than everywhere else.  Why, and  what can they do to lower the temps in the cities.  It is not cow farts that are causing cities to be so much warmer than  farm comunities.   Is it concrete, or glass or maybe metal from cars or building or solar panels.  What are big cities doing to reduce the heat signiture of their cities

Cities are what's called "heat islands" because asphalt and concrete, as well as dark-tinted or -colored buildings, absorb and retain more heat than natural landscapes. With very few exceptions, they have less vegetation than corresponding rural areas; this reduces the availabilty of cooling from air movement (fewer sun/shade boundaries). The materials used to build cities are higher in thermotransference than the materials in natural landscapes, resulting in more absorption of the sun's heat during the day, and the gradual release of it during the evening. That's why the heat island effect is most pronounced after sunset: the city doesn't cool off.

Mitigation measures include: planting more greenery, especially within and among otherwise barren and exposed artifical surfaces--deciduous trees are ideal; painting buildings white or lighter colors (the Greeks have known this for millennia); reflective rooftops; green rooftops (plants); passive radiative coolers.

Phoenix, as you might imagine, has been a pioneer in these mitigation efforts. Downtown Phoenix used to be an absolute hell on earth, to the extent that people couldn't even walk there half the year without getting sick. They're doing a lot to fix it; they pretty much have to.

BTW, solar panels, since they reflect and redirect the sun's rays, have a mild cooling effect on the structures atop which they're installed. So would mirrors, for that matter.

So you are saying that Phoenix  has been able to lower the heat signiture in  the city and is now a model for all cities to start lowering their heat signitures going forward.  it seems that this should be measurable by city

It's very much a work in progress. Also, "heat signature" refers to how much heat a city or other area radiates. The problem with urban areas is that their heat signature needs to increase, as too much heat is being absorbed. The city needs to reflect it, not absorb it.

As far as the effectiveness thereof is concerned, the only meaningful data would be "before and after" those mitigation efforts, and there's not a lot of "after" data yet. That data may be complicated by overall climate change, as in, a city's heat island mitigation efforts might be successful if it simply didn't get any hotter (while the surrounding countryside did).

I don't think Las Vegas is doing nearly as much as Phoenix is, so those two cities might be good ones to compare going forward.

So you are saying that since we should be able to measure these cities heat signitures over the last 10 years we should be able to see significant gains or losses by each cities efforts.  Or are we only going to see this data going forward since they only now just started planting trees and painting streets and rooftops white ?

I lived in Phoenix for decades, its always been hot AF.  This year set all kinds of records for so many days over 100*.  I believe it.  However, I wish they'd quit using the thermometer on the tarmac at Sky Harbor Airport as the key source of temperature measurement.

I worked at Sky Harbor on the ramp in 1990 when it hit 122.  It was hot hot hot and aircraft were grounded as they didn't have calculated load balancing sheets for that hot of a temperature.  Their wheels were sinking into the tarmac.  I don't ever want to work in the heat again, though that was a step up from doing roof tear off in the summer I did as a kid where I'm sure it was 140 on a balmy day on an asphalt roof.

The point is, these heat islands are measuring temperatures at the very hottest areas of the cities.  Sure, its a new record streak but ffs, you might as well take the temperature at the back of a jet engine and call it an ice cream cone.

Not sure if all decent sized cities with airports use the airport as the source of temperature measurement, but Vegas does.  

As long as they are consistent its fine, just know you need to adjust as much as 10*.  However NOAA does some malarky with their global heat maps.  If a sensor doesn't exist or is offline (some for years) they will pull data from as far as 500 miles away and 'average' the temperatures across multiple sensors for that region.  Its total bs but appeases the climate doomers.

Most cities still do; the original reason was that a municipal airport usually had the best meteorological equipment in the city and was manned most hours if not 24/7. Even though that's not necessarily the case any more, they still use the airport as the data point for the sake of consistency over time.