B-COOL Partnership Launches Second Summer of Heat Research
July 23, 2025
Thanks to the generous support of The Boston Foundation, with additional support from the Barr Foundation and Paul & Edith Babson Foundation, the “Boston Cool” or B-COOL partnership between the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), City of Boston’s Office of Climate Resilience, The Boston Foundation, and A Better City, began a second summer of temperature monitoring in Boston in June.
Last summer’s B-COOL pilot research focused on comparing official heat advisory and emergency declarations based on National Weather Service data from a sensor at Logan Airport, to lived heat experiences and temperatures measured by 15 HOBO temperature sensors located across environmental justice neighborhoods in Boston. B-COOL’s summer 2025 research builds upon the 2024 pilot and is beginning to explore the impact of shade interventions on heat stress for different heat-vulnerable populations.
Although tree planting and urban forestry are often seen as a go-to solution for heat relief in hotspot neighborhoods, newly planted trees take time to mature and provide shade and cooling and are also dependent on sufficient resources for maintenance and stewardship to survive, including resources for regular watering. Human-made shade structures can be a faster option for shade and heat relief than trees, and can be deployable either permanently, semi-permanently (across a summer season), or as pop-up structures in advance of high heat events. For locations with insufficient street/sidewalk space for trees to grow and thrive (like Chinatown), shade structures could also be pivotal in providing heat relief.
To help provide evidence on the efficacy of different shade structures, the B-COOL research team, led by Dr. Patricia Fabián and Jonathan Lee from BUSPH, is evaluating the impact of shade structures like green roof bus shelters, shade structures placed on playgrounds, and pop up shade structures deployed by the City of Boston at libraries and Boston Center for Youth and Families (BCYF) locations on heat stress. Using kestrel sensors to monitor the impact of shade (with one sensor placed in the sun as a control and one sensor in the shade at each monitored location), the B-COOL team hopes to better understand the efficacy of different shade structures. Such data will also be helpful in prioritizing heat-relieving resources and effective shade structures. In addition to the kestrel sensors that need to be deployed during high heat events across summer 2025, the B-COOL team is also deploying a handful of HOBO sensors leftover from last year, to monitor hotspot and cool location temperatures across summers for comparison. For any questions and more information, please contact Isabella Gambill.
