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  • COMMENT

Deploy heat officers, policies and metrics

Cities need heat governance to plan for extreme temperatures and protect those most at risk.
  1. Ladd Keith

    1. Ladd Keith is an assistant professor of planning at the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA.

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  2. Sara Meerow

    1. Sara Meerow is an assistant professor at the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA.

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  3. David M. Hondula

    1. David M. Hondula is an associate professor at the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA.

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  4. V. Kelly Turner

    1. V. Kelly Turner is an assistant professor of urban planning and co-director of the Luskin Center for Innovation, Luskin School of Public Affairs, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.

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  5. James C. Arnott

    1. James C. Arnott is executive director of the Aspen Global Change Institute, Basalt, Colorado, USA.

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In June, the blistering ‘heat dome’ that sat for weeks over western states of North America saw temperatures soar 20 °C higher than average in some places. Lytton, a village in British Columbia, reached 49.6 °C smashing Canada’s previous national high, before the town was destroyed by a wildfire (see Nature 595, 331–332; 2021). More than 1,000 people died from the heatwave across the region.

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Nature 598, 29-31 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02677-2

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Competing Interests

During the writing of this Comment piece, D.M.H. was appointed to serve as the director of the City of Phoenix Office of Heat Response and Mitigation. He will retain his academic title and position at Arizona State University.

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