The heat of Delhi is the best conversation starter. Strangers instantly bond,sharing similar experiences of ordeals under the unmerciful Delhi ka dhoop. With the new IIT research,people can break the ice now by commenting on the three hottest places in the city the Sitaram Bazar,Connaught Place and Bhikaji Cama Place. The Centre of Atmospheric Sciences,IIT Delhi,has come out a research that tries to find out the Urban Heat Islands (UHI) in Delhi,where temperature is higher owing to urbanisation dense buildings,heat radiating from a thousand parked cars and hot air pumped into the streets by the generators and air conditioners. The UHI is measured by the temperature difference from the place with the lowest temperature. The research called DELHI-I (Delhi Experiments to Learn Heat Island Intensity I) was conducted in May 2008 to understand the latest intensity and dynamics of heat islands or areas that get heated hue to urbanisation. The city was divided into 30 zones,where the temperature was measured for four days. Commenting on the urban heat phenomenon,Prof Manju Mohan from IITD said with the development of satellite towns and unprecedented growth of cities,pockets of urban heat islands have developed. We can also term this phenomenon observed in the current context as Urban Warming, she said. In the three top spots,the UHI was found to be much higher than two spots that record the lowest UHI the Sanjay Van-Hauz Khas Distt Park zone and Buddha Jayanti Park-Moti Nagar zone. The UHI intensity was found to be more both at 9 pm (the range was 2.8 °C to 8.3°C) and afternoon hours at 3 pm (3.8 °C to 7.6 °C) respectively. Early mornings the minimum temperature epoch recorded the lowest range (4.1°C to 5.6 °C). The UHI intensity is significant both during day and night. Rainfall,of course,reduces it. The scary bit about the research is that hotter the places get,the more they use cooling agents air conditioners and coolers that further increases the heat,leading to a vicious cycle. According to the researchers,the results of the study undoubtedly call for implementation of mitigation measures along with the development of urban infrastructure to keep the heat island effect in check. Apart from Mohan,the research and the assessment was conducted by Yukihiro Kikegawa and Koichi Ogawa from Meisei University,Tokyo,Japan and B R Gurjar,Shweta Bhati and Anurag Kandya from IIT,Roorkee. The paper was presented at the seventh International Conference on Urban Climate held in Yokohama in Japan. The pockets of UHI seen in the cities are for real,said Mohan,altering energy consumption patterns in the city,causing local warming and also affecting the dynamics of heat flow. Indirectly,this will also affect the atmospheric dispersion of pollutants locally, she added.
