Evaluation of the occurrence of the heat island phenomenon in the urban area of the municipality of Taubaté, SP

Abstract

The world population is close to reaching 8 billion inhabitants, however, only in the 21st century did the urban population surpass the rural population. With the increase in urban areas worldwide, many facilities have been achieved, however many adversities are part of the daily lives of city people, traffic, violence, pollution. The present work investigated the occurrence of heat islands in the municipality of Taubaté, which is located in the southeastern region of the state of São Paulo, in the metropolitan region of Vale do Paraíba. The study was carried out with the adoption of the mobile transect methodology. 18 mobile transects were carried out simultaneously, with orientation from south to north and from west to east during the month of July 2019, on the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th, at three different times of the day, at 5 hours and 10 minutes, from 2 pm to 8 pm. Temperature and relative humidity data were collected over 37 points from south to north and 42 points from west to east in the study area. The data analysis considered the variation of urbanization and land use to determine the temperature differences between the points of the transects. The results showed that the more urbanized areas are more heated than the less urbanized areas during the afternoon, night and dawn. The intensities of the heat islands were, during the 20 hours, of moderate to strong intensity, indicating warming in the urban surfaces.