Saguaro cacti collapsing in Arizona heat
reuters.com
reuters.com
> “The temperature of asphalt and pavement and concrete and sidewalks in Arizona on a warm sunny day or summer afternoon is 180 degrees sometimes. I mean, it’s just a little below boiling, so it’s really something,” Foster said.
It can take only a “fraction of a second” to get a “pretty deep burn,” he said. For people who have been on the pavement for 10 to 20 minutes, “the skin is completely destroyed” and the damage often goes down deep, meaning it is a third-degree burn.
Foster sees burns like that after people survive a house fire. “These are really serious injuries,” he said.
[0] https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/health/arizona-heat-burns-er/...
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/arizona-is-so-hot-paveme...
Adoption of greenspace and far more solar panels in Phoenix could significantly cut down on this phenomena.
Your figure for asphalt seems off. I think the more pertinent comparison would be between solar cells and undisurbed land, which have similar albedo. But thermal mass is probably even more important: ground beneath solar panels receive less thermal radiation than unshaded ground, and while solar cells get hot during the day they cool down quickly at night. Simplifying greatly, they should re-emit about half of the heat they capture to the sky, and half to the ground.
No, that's a terrible comparison. We're talking about Phoenix here: the whole place is basically covered in asphalt, either roads or parking lots. There's no "undisturbed land" there at all.
I'd be glad to see more information as regards the conditions which lead to that conclusion
Well, they do have lots of green grass yards needing tons of irrigation....
raise structures around to add some shadow?
Put a fan feeded by a small solar panel to help them cool down?
We could agree at least to try something. This things need a bazillion time to grow