Report shows: It's not your imagination, AZ is getting hotter.

Report shows: It's not your imagination, AZ is getting hotter (Alberta Times) Phoenix – If you feel like summer is longer and hotter, you can...

Report: It’s not your imagination, AZ is getting hotter (Alberta Times) PHOENIX – If summer feels like it’s getting longer and hotter, you’re probably not too far away. A new report shows temperatures are rising faster in Arizona than in any other state. "You think you get used to it, and then as you get older you realize that your body isn't used to it?" says Sam shop owner, Alan Freeman. Freeman spends a lot of time outdoors. "You start early in the morning and you're outside all the time," he said. He's lived here his whole life, and he's noticed that it's getting hotter and hotter over the past few decades. "Where we used to spend about 15 nights a year fighting frost, now I only worry about frost maybe every five years," Freeman said. This is not his imagination. A new report from Climate Central says Arizona has become the fastest-warming state every decade since 1970, with temperatures increasing by about 0.6 degrees per decade. We've been ranked fourth among the fastest-warming states since 1912. One of the reasons we're getting hotter is because we've taken agricultural land and turned it into urban and suburban land using materials like concrete and asphalt, which generally absorb heat. We also have a canyon effect, where if you have buildings and narrow areas between buildings, you have heat rebound at night, state climatologist Dr. Nancy said. Arizona, she said, rethink the materials we use to build because if we continue like this, we're going to waste energy. We asked her why it was so hot at night, and she said that like asphalt and concrete absorb heat, the nighttime hours aren't long enough for them to cool down.