LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — During a record-breaking summer, experts suggest ways for Southern Nevada to beat the heat.
According to officials from the National Weather Service, summer 2024 was the hottest on record in Southern Nevada. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials expect longer waves of intense heat to increase in frequency over time, with concrete areas remaining warm during warm triple-digit Southern Nevada nights.
“The city is becoming a baking oven,” said Dr. Steffen Lehmann, Director of the Urban Futures Lab at UNLV, adding that the causes of urban heat islands are reversible. “We should really change the building code in two areas: roofs and parking lots.”
Lehmann suggested drought-resistant, large, native trees to provide shade and a canopy to keep the sun’s rays from baking the asphalt, absorbing and trapping heat. The City of Tucson, Arizona, plans to plant one million trees by 2030. Officials from the City of Las Vegas hope to plant 60,000 by 2050.
“The benefit of cool roofs – they really do have a trickledown effect,” said Audrey McGarrell, a project manager at the Cool Roof Rating Council, a nonprofit organization that evaluates the radiative properties of roofing and exterior wall products. “They reflect more solar energy than a conventional roofing material.”
According to the EPA, cool roof requirements are now integrated into at least 13 cities and counties, seven states, and Washington, D.C. In most cases, building codes in Clark County don’t specify the use of energy-efficient materials.
“We have chosen the wrong materials to build a city, and it has something to do with the lack of vegetation,” Lehmann said. “What used to be artificial grass will become tiny pieces of plastic that will enter the soil and pollute the soil,” adding that the material, widely used in the Las Vegas valley, also soaks in the heat.
Lehmann said Southern Nevada is one of the fastest-warming regions in the nation. In 2022, the Southern Nevada Urban Heat Mapping Project identified the eastern, downtown, and northern regions of Las Vegas as areas that experience temperatures 11 degrees warmer than the rest of Southern Nevada.
More information on Cool Roofs is available on the organization’s website.
