Finally I'm emerging from my Christmas and New Year lassitude, and have returned to my important duties of blog posting. And it took the warmest night in Perth's recorded history to prompt me to write.
Last night, I watched the thriller Prisoners at Kings Park's Moonlight Cinema, and it was delightful to lie on the cool lawn amongst the gum trees. My thermometer watch recorded the temperature as the evening progressed. At sunset, the official Perth temperature was a sizzling 35 C, but on the grass, it was a mild 27 C. And within an hour, the temperature was 24 C in Kings Park, compared to 34 C in Perth. It actually felt chilly at times, and people around me rugged up as a refreshingly chilly breeze wafted over us. Once the film finished, it was shocking to leave the green refuge of the park and return to the suburbs and experience the wall of heat outside my house.
The reason I mention this is to remind everyone that greening the suburbs with trees and lawns has such a beneficial effect in reducing the heat island effect, I only wish more councils recognised this and spent more time planting trees rather than bulldozing remnant bushland and removing mature street trees.
UPDATE Do plants act as natural evaporative air conditioners? The humidity rising from a lawn and other plants must have an effect at capturing heat from the air.
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