What's one cause of the heat island effect? A. Pollution of groundwater B. Reduced rainfall in urban areas C. Higher albedo in urban areas D. Lower albedo in urban areas

D. Lower albedo in urban areas

Explanation:

The heat island effect is caused by several factors, but one of the most important ones is the low albedo. This is particularly the case in the large urban areas. The large urban areas have low albedo, meaning that the solar radiation is accumulated in greater extent, and less of it is reflected back to the atmosphere. This results in an increase of the surface temperature, and the lowest parts of the atmosphere above it. The reason why this happens is that the urban areas are dominated by materials that have low reflection of the solar radiation, such as the concrete and asphalt. The concrete and asphalt are actually absorbing the solar radiation, so the their temperatures is increasing, and since they are the dominant materials, most of the area has rise in the temperatures. In practice this can easily be noticed by the people, as if the weather is warmer, in larger urban area it feels like we are in an oven, with heat surrounding us from all sides.