https://phys.org/news/2018-07-cooler-singapore.html

Tucking into a spicy noodle soup and Chinese dumplings, Girot explains why he brought his students to Singapore: "Most of them have never been to Asia, so it's hard for them to understand what life in a tropical metropolis is like – it's something physical you have to experience in the flesh." He hopes this experience will help his students gain a better understanding of the growing problem of urban heat islands (UHIs). Heat is increasingly posing health and energy challenges in big cities throughout the tropical belt, from Jakarta and Manila to Bangkok and Singapore.In Singapore, temperatures in central, heavily built-up areas such as Orchard Road sometimes exceed those in surrounding rural areas by up to 7 °C.

The city is heated not just by its tropical climate, but also by the continuous injection of anthropogenic heat from car exhausts, industry and fossil fuel power stations, as well as waste heat from hundreds of thousands of air conditioning units. Other UHI drivers include densely packed building complexes that are not optimised for wind, as well as dark surfaces such as tarmac roads and building facades that store heat instead of reflecting the sun's rays.