What is it about?
Global climate models are commonly used to predict future warming, but they give one average value for large regions. This means their predictions mostly reflect non-urban (rural) areas, not what happens inside cities. In this study, a new approach is developed to estimate how temperatures will change within medium-sized cities. The results show that in many places (81%), cities are likely to warm faster than their surrounding rural areas. This highlights the need to focus specifically on cities when planning for climate change, since urban communities may face greater heat risks than regional climate predictions suggest.
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Photo by Camille Studer on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Most of the world’s population lives in cities, so it is essential to understand how climate change will impact urban areas. This research focuses in particular on medium-sized cities in the tropics and subtropics, both areas that are often overlooked in urban climate studies. The findings show that cities need their own climate projections and adaptation strategies, rather than relying only on regional averages.
Perspectives
Focusing on medium-sized cities, especially in the tropics and subtropics, allowed us to address a gap in current research. I hope this work helps pave the way for more studies on the specific impacts of climate change on smaller cities, highlighting the challenges these communities face.
Sarah Berk
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Amplified warming in tropical and subtropical cities under 2 °C climate change, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 2026, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2502873123.
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