TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A climate specialist has warned that the heat island effect is worsening in north Taiwan and will soon spread across Greater Taipei.
Lin Tzu-ping (林子平), a professor at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) who operates the university's Building and Climate Lab (BCLab), said on Facebook on Sunday (June 23), that living in metropolitan areas subjects residents to the dual heat stress of climate change and urban heat islands.
Due to the connection of high-temperature areas, it is possible that regions including Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei, and Taoyuan could become a continuous tropical zone, making heat dissipation more difficult.
Lin said that based on the urban heat island map from Saturday (June 22) uploaded to Facebook, it appears that the high-temperature areas of Taipei, New Taipei, and Taoyuan might connect and expand in scope. This phenomenon is similar to Tokyo's heat island, which has already spread over 60 kilometers, making future cooling efforts even more challenging, said Lin.
Also on Saturday, the urban heat island effect showed that temperatures in the central basin - specifically Wanhua District (36.9 C) and Shilin District (37.3 C) - were slightly higher than in other areas. The lowest temperature was recorded at Daan Forest Park (34.9 C), and the temperature near Dunhua South Road's tree-lined boulevard was also relatively low.
Lin said the intensity of Taipei's urban heat island, which is the temperature difference between high and low-temperature areas, is about 2.4 C.
BCLab combined data from the Central Weather Administration (CWA) weather stations and the research team's monitoring points to plot the temperature distribution at noon on Saturday.
Lin told CNA that Taipei and Taoyuan may accumulate heat for different reasons, but it is important to note that once these heat sources converge, it becomes difficult for them to dissipate the heat.
Lin explained that Taipei's Wanhua District is low-lying, while Xinyi District is over-developed. Taoyuan's hotspots mainly appear in river valley terrain.
According to research, extremely high temperatures at the end of the century could occur in the Greater Taipei Basin, but in terms of temperature increase, Taoyuan's river valleys will experience the highest rise, particularly in areas like Taoyuan District and Zhongli District, predicted Lin.
Regarding the difficulty of heat dissipation, Lin said this could lead to shorter cooling periods during the day, preventing nighttime temperatures from dropping sufficiently. Consequently, the next day accumulates more heat, creating a heating cycle.
Moreover, compared to previous years, "This year's heat situation has also started earlier," said Lin. In the past, similar phenomena were usually observed around July, but this year's onset has shifted to June.
The BCLab research team has installed micro weather stations on streetlamp poles to record microclimate characteristics within urban environments. Although their monitoring objectives and environmental conditions differ from the CWA's, the team's comparison with the agency's 24-hour temperature data illustrates that the hot spots across Taipei, New Taipei, and Taoyuan are interconnected and expanding in scope.
