The Need for Historical Awareness in Urban Heat Island Work

The heat island effect is more central to urban climatology than any of its other studied phenomena. However, despite the importance of heat islands to climate work in all cities, scientific rigor in modern observations of the phenomenon is lacking. Recent reviews have highlighted factors that are contributing to this problem—factors related principally to weaknesses in experimental design and communication of results. In this talk, I discuss the same problem, but propose a different contribution: the systemic ignorance of history. To support this proposition, I identify a canon of heat island classics and highlight the methodological ideals and rigors that are upheld in that work. Citation analysis reveals that almost none of these historical classics is read or referenced by modern workers in the field. Thus the opportunity to learn from the field’s greatest pioneers and experimentalists, who in their time faced similar methodological problems that trouble the field today, has so far been missed. Modern heat island literature is now oversupplied with routine observations (mostly of poor or unknown quality) and casual claims to “first” or “unprecedented” results (mostly of false origin). Furthermore, the transfer of reliable urban air temperature data to whom and where it is needed most has not been effective. Restoring progress in the field can be helped by a united effort to promote historical awareness in urban heat island research.