The city has always been hottest in August, but this June it suffered several days in a row when the temperature reached 36℃ (97°Ｆ), and on July 5th the thermometer hit 37.4℃ (99.3°Ｆ), the third highest reading recorded for the past 100 years.

Early morning should be the coolest time of the day, but "these days I find myself waking up at four or five in the morning all covered with sweat!" exclaims Ho Mei-lan, adding that this summer she can't get to sleep without running the air conditioner.

An American who has lived in Taipei for four years working as a translator for a well-known magazine agrees that the weather seems to be getting hotter and hotter. "The winters aren't as cold as they were when I first got here either," he says. "Last year I didn't even take out my big overcoat."

The records at the weather bureau confirm that the average temperature in Taipei over the past five years has indeed climbed by nearly one degree centigrade.

But the city's high temperatures are not completely due to the worldwide greenhouse effect. "Part of the reason comes from the way Taipei has developed over the years and changes in the way it looks," says Feng P'eng-nien, a weather expert and editor of Of Man & Heaven magazine.

The Taipei of thirty or forty years ago still had much of the country village about it--unpaved roads; low houses spread out from one another; and large stretches of rice paddies, orchards, and empty fields. Today these sights are all gone, replaced by a conglomeration of steel and concrete high-rises, paved sidewalks, and asphalt streets.

Packed within this asphalt and concrete jungle is a snarl of metal-encased cars, buses, and motorcycles. According to the Environmental Protection Bureau, more than 460,000 motorcycles weave in and out of traffic in the city every day. And the number of air-conditioning units increases at a rate of 300,000 a year.

"How could Taipei not be so hot is more like it!" Yao Ch'ing-chun says. She points out that although materials like concrete, iron, and steel may seem cold to the touch, they are actually several times more heat-absorbent than wood, earth, and grass. If the sun shines on them both the same way for an hour, you can stand in your bare feet on grass but not on concrete.

What's more, "all the unevenly spaced high-rises make Taipei a heat trap," says Chiang Shan-hsin, a geography professor at National Taiwan University, who explains that flat, smooth ground more easily reflects the sun's radiation back into the sky.

Taipei's jumbled buildings not only absorb a great deal of heat themselves but also reflect the radiation they don't absorb onto other buildings, so that the heat has no way to dissipate.

Huang Ruei-shyang, an assistant researcher in the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, recalls how he and his family used to sit outside after dinner to cool off and chat with the neighbors when he was a child. Now the buildings block any breeze there may be, and "sitting outside to cool off with the neighbors has long become a thing of the past," he reflects sadly. Compared with sucking in the exhaust from cars outside, sitting in the air-conditioning and watching TV inside is a lot more comfortable.

Only--who hasn't had the experience of walking past the rear end of an air conditioner and getting hit with a blast of hot air?

Although no one has calculated just how many calories of heat are given off by all the city's air conditioners, motorcycles, and kitchens, Wu Ming-chin, an assistant professor of atmospheric science at National Taiwan University, says that these modern products all require energy to operate and under the principles of thermodynamics some of that energy must end up as heat added to our environment.

"It creates a vicious cycle," says an engineer who works at Texas Instruments Co. and who majored in physics. He points out that all of us produce heat in our daily lives to a greater or lesser extent, which causes the environment to become hotter. To get rid of the additional heat we use more air conditioners, refrigerators, and freezers, but these appliances in turn produce yet more heat.

"Of course, this condition of heat coming from multiple sources is not unique to Taipei," geography professor Chiang says. Meteorologists have found that the temperature in densely populated or industrialized areas is regularly several degrees higher than it is in the surrounding countryside.

"London is always a couple of degrees higher in temperature than its suburbs," Chiang says, pointing to a research paper. If a map is marked off with isotherms, or lines of equal temperature, he says, they will circle urban areas in a pattern that meteorologists call a "heat island."

In Taipei, because of both natural and man-made factors, this effect is especially marked.

First of all, the city is located in a basin amid surrounding hills, which makes it easy to collect heat--unlike Kaohsiung, which is cooled by sea winds during the day and a land breeze at night. That's why Kaohsiung is less hot than Taipei even though it's farther south.

Besides the natural heat of summer, the heat that we produce ourselves also remains trapped in the city. In the past a breeze from the suburbs could blow a little of it away, but now that the suburbs have all turned into industrial regions even if there's a breeze it just blows in more heat.

A general absence of parks and trees compounds the problem. Most of the city is overrun with man-made structures and concrete walkways, and the few roadside trees are having a tough time surviving.

Besides turning up their air conditioners, some city dwellers have taken the more constructive step of maintaining gardens on apartment rooftops to cut down the heat. But as one housewife points out, it seems like just a drop in the ocean. "We're like an ostrich keeping its head cool in the sand but with the rest of its body still stuck out in the sun," she says. Still, "it's better than nothing," she confesses--because to really solve the problem would probably mean cutting the city's population in half, having everyone live in houses without air conditioning, and getting rid of the cars and motorcycles. "And that's out of the question, isn't it?"

The most farsighted among us, it seems, was the fashion industry. Way back in the spring they told us, "Hot pants are going to be popular in Taipei this summer." Probably next year too.

[Picture Caption]

(Left) Air conditioning cools down the indoors but heats up the environment.

(Right) With so many cars and motorcycles it would be hard for Taipei not to be hot.

Fumes and heat from burning trash add pollution on top of pollution.

Taipei is situated in a basin, which collects heat easily. This natural drawback is compounded by man-made problems. (photo by Arthur Cheng)

Why Is Taipei Getting Hotter?

Why Is Taipei Getting Hotter?

（Left） Air conditioning cools down the indoors but heats up the environment.

Fumes and heat from burning trash add pollution on top of pollution.

（Right） With so many cars and motorcycles it would be hard for Taipei not to be hot.

Fumes and heat from burning trash add pollution on top of pollution.