A Concordia University researcher will mount sensors onto a fleet of bikes to detect just how much trees are cooling down streets and urban spaces.
Trees collectively contribute to a phenomenon called evapotranspiration 鈥� which involves the movement of water within a plant and the loss of water vapour through its leaves.
Concordia University urban ecologist Carly Ziter told 麻豆影视 Montreal that when trees give off water vapour they act like 鈥渓ittle air conditioners 鈥� cooling the air around them.鈥�
Her new study aims to figure out how much trees affect how cool an area feels.
Part of this will involve comparing a neighbourhood鈥檚 鈥渦rban canopy,鈥� which is the amount of tree foliage that actually shades people.
Similar to a she conducted in Wisconsin and published in the journal Ecological Application, Ziter鈥檚 team plans on mounting specialized mobile weather station sensors onto bicycles.
鈥淲e rode several different paths through the city through the summer to get a real sense of real-time change in air temperature, as you move through area of different canopy cover and pavement,鈥� she said.
What surprised Ziter during her U.S. study was just how much the temperature could change, particularly if the urban canopy was at 40 per cent coverage.
鈥淲ithin the space of moving from one neighborhood to another 鈥� three to five degrees Celsius in difference is a larger magnitude in (the) range of temperatures that we have anticipated,鈥� she explained.
For this new study, Ziter said she鈥檚 鈥渆xcited鈥� to see if the 鈥渢hreshold of 40 per cent is going to hold in other cities? Or [will] we need less or even more trees to get the same effect in large cities like Montreal?鈥�
Because trees cool the air, she said they鈥檙e 鈥渞eally important city infrastructure (in) the same way that our roads, bridges and buildings are.鈥�
Her potential findings could lead to cities focusing more on tree-planting programs, Ziter said.
This could prove to be a solution to help people deal with hotter and more humid summers due in part to climate change.
estimates that trillions of new trees could remove and capture two-thirds of all the human-made carbon dioxide emissions.
