Urban heat is more than a matter of temperature. It can affect how people sleep, work, travel through the city, how they dress, and even how safe or comfortable they feel in public space. Yet these everyday consequences often remain invisible in conventional assessments of urban heat.
This summer in Europe and in Germany particularly, has shown just how dramatic the effects of heat waves can be – ranging from a reduced quality of life and enormous economic damage to a high number of heat-related deaths.
A new study by an interdisciplinary team from the University of Würzburg, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and the Mendel University in Brno (Czechia) examines the human dimension of urban heat, using Mexico City in 2022 as a case study.
Their study combines satellite observations, weather-station measurements, urban spatial structures, census data, and geolocated social media posts to understand how and where urban heat affects urban residents. This latest study demonstrates the added value of interdisciplinary research – the combination of remote sensing, linguistics, digital humanities and geography enables a more spatially and thematically nuanced examination of the phenomenon of heat. This study was conducted within the field of Geolingual Studies, currently developed at JMU Würzburg. ( https://www.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/gls Intern: 251126)
Heat affects many aspects of everyday urban life
The researchers found a clear threshold. The lead author of the study, Dr. Richard Lemoine-Rodríguez, explains: “Once air temperatures exceeded 25°C, heat-related social media posts from Mexico City increased exponentially, showing that heat becomes a public concern above this threshold. Additionally, we found that more heat-related posts were shared from hotter and more densely built parts of Mexico City.”
“What people discussed online showed that heat affects many dimensions of everyday life. The most common issue was health problems and heat stress, with users describing fatigue, insomnia, physical discomfort, and emotional distress. Working conditions and clothing were another prominent concern: people described insufficient cooling infrastructure and reported that they were not allowed to wear shorts at work despite extreme heat, and in some cases argued that work should stop under those conditions”, Dr. Lemoine-Rodríguez elaborates further.
Women also described unwanted attention and harassment when wearing lighter clothes to cope with high temperatures, turning this adaptation strategy into a distressing experience for them.
Professor Carolin Biewer explains further findings. “Other posts focused on public transport and infrastructure; including delays, uncomfortable journeys, and insufficient ventilation or air conditioning. Users also described the situation of having to decide which was the lesser of two evils: exposure to heat or air pollution. If they were to open a window to cool down, they would at the same time be forced to inhale polluted air.”
Discussion also included cooling areas and air conditioning as well as concerns about birds, pets, and other animals needing water. Some posts also connected the heat with broader concerns about social inequality and climate change.
From measured to experienced heat
Professor Hannes Taubenböck emphasizes that “satellites and weather stations can tell us where it is hot and how hot it is. But they cannot reveal whether people cannot sleep, struggle to work, feel unsafe, or suffer during their daily commute. This is the central idea behind the study: moving from measured to experienced heat.”
By combining physical measurements with social media data, the authors of this research identified not only where heat occurs, but also the concrete problems it creates in people’s daily lives.
The study therefore points toward a more human-centred approach to climate adaptation, in which temperature maps are complemented by information about people’s experiences and needs.
“To adapt cities to increasing heat, it is not enough to know how hot they are. We also need to understand what that heat means for people”, says Taubenböck.
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing
From Measured to Experienced Heat: A Multimodal Analysis of Temperature, Urban Form, and Social Media in Mexico City
27-Aug-2026
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