Tokyo — Living With Heat
Japan, 2025

Tokyo has warmed by 3°C over the past century – twice the national average1

These images are drawn from a photo essay exploreing how the city’s people and infrastructure are responding to rising heat

1. Fujibe, F. (2016) ‘Urban warming in Japanese cities and its relation to climate change monitoring’, Science of the Total Environment, 571, pp. 1552–1559. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.06.045.

Aerial view of a densely packed urban cityscape with numerous high-rise buildings and smaller residential structures, under a slightly cloudy sky.

Tokyo on a sweltering summer day.

Comparison of two photos of Mount Fuji, taken in 2020 and 2023, showing less snow on the mountain in 2023. A person walks past the billboard.

Climate as marketing. A technology refurbishment company uses heat messaging to connect with potential customers.

Industrial smokestack emitting flames during the night with people in the foreground.

Heat from production. Factories and industrial facilities (as seen here in nearby Yokohama’s industrial precinct) add to local warming through constant heat release.

A colorful, stylized artwork of a person holding an umbrella, crossing a street at sunset, with vivid orange, red, and purple hues.

Smarter streets. New, reflective road surface in the foreground, normal in the background. Composite image of normal and thermal images.

Water splashing in mid-air in the foreground with blurred people walking in the background outside a building.

Uchimizu. The traditional act of water sprinkling to cool surfaces.

Public indoor space with reflective glass walls, a large purple digital screen displaying two women with silhouette-like bright yellow back-lit figures, and a seating area with bags and a person sitting on the bench.

Water wall at Roppongi Hills. Running water helps to reduce ambient heat.

A city alleyway with various air conditioning units and satellite dishes mounted on old buildings, cluttered with boxes and debris, some windows with faint light.

Every wall is a heater. Cooling the indoors means heating the outdoors — one unit at a time.

A young woman sitting on a wooden bench using her phone on a city sidewalk at night, with illuminated signs and buildings behind her, including a large digital screen displaying colorful abstract art.

Air conditioners – a solution and problem. 10.11 pm: While people rest below, air conditioners quietly pump 55°C heat into the Tokyo night while coolant flows into buildings at 12°C