As the men’s Tour de France wraps up and the women’s race begins, the European heat wave rages on. If you look closely, the heat can be seen in photos of the event: cooling towels around racers’ necks, water splashed over red faces, ice packs sticking out from under race jerseys.
Compounding the temperatures is the heat island effect created by roads which absorb and radiate heat. On the hottest days of the men’s race, with temperatures nearing 40℃, organisers even watered some of the roads to lower the surface temperature. And while this works, it also adds to the humidity – solving one problem but contributing to another. It also doesn’t account for the environmental implications of using that much water to hose down a road.
