PNNL

Abstract

The identification of the world’s hottest and coldest cities fascinates both the public and academia. However, the ranking of city temperatures, especially from the perspective of human discomfort, remains highly controversial. Here we estimated the monthly mean maximum and minimum 1-km resolution urban temperatures of 13,135 cities worldwide (2003 – 2019) from the thermal discomfort perspective by combining in situ measurements, satellite-based land surface temperatures, fine-resolution intra-city data, and reanalysis data. Manama, Bahrain was identified as the hottest city (48.18 ± 1.31 °C) and Yakutsk, Russia (–42.96 ± 0.72 °C) as the coldest city. The global city temperatures followed a power law pattern, characterised by cities with