How climate change is worsening extreme heat
Extreme time seems to make the front page of the newspapers almost every week, while disasters are getting more and more seasonal, beat records and hit the places they never have before.
Decades of scientific research have proven that climate change of human origin makes certain disasters more dangerous and more frequent. The combustion of fossil fuels such as petroleum, gas and coal releases carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, where it imprisoned heat, warms the planet and modifies the conditions in which the extreme weather is formed. These changes occur faster than any time in the past 800,000 years, according to Climate Records.
Below, we decompose what experts know – and what they do not do – on the links between climate change and extreme heat.
The relationship between climate change and heat waves is perhaps the simplest of any disaster. “If we have an extreme heat wave, the null hypothesis is,” climate change aggravates this, “said Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. reinforced by this. In 2020, scientists concluded that extreme heat in Siberia – with temperatures close to 100 degrees in the Arctic circle – was made 600 times more likely due to greenhouse gas emissions.
Cities in the United States see days of 100 degrees more often, and they are not only reserved for summer dead. Some places, such as Houston, have reached triple figures in February. Cities with light climates could be poorly equipped to respond to the new normal, and will have to invest in interventions such as better alert and awareness systems, subsidizing air conditioning installations in low -income housing, the maintenance of a network of public cooling centers and transport services during heat waves and strengthening the electric energy grid.
Policies prohibiting public service companies from disconnecting electrical services can also protect vulnerable residents, which may be afraid of managing their AC all day due to costs. Forty states have disconnection moratories during extreme cold – but only 21 have similar laws for extreme heat.
Night temperatures also increase, intensifying the risk of heat waves. This is particularly disturbing for people who do not have access to air conditioning (more than 35 million people in the United States, for example), or to those who live in urban heat islands, where the abundance of complating concrete combined with a lack of trees and shadow in certain districts can cause temperatures to be increased from 15 to 20 degrees higher than neighborhoods with parks and green spaces.
Extreme heat can cause a myriad of health problems and even be fatal, especially for the elderly, those who work outside, poorly married people and people with pre -existing heart or pulmonary conditions. Even for healthy adults, extreme heat can make it difficult for the body to cool, which puts acute stress on the heart and kidneys. A recent study revealed that chronic exposure to heat is aging the body more than usual smoking. Between 2004 and 2021, the number of Americans officially deceased from heat exposure increased by 439%. On average, over the past 30 years, heat waves have killed more people than hurricanes, floods or tornadoes.
Even if it becomes more common and more dangerous, FEMA still does not classify extreme heat as a natural disaster, therefore federal funding to support local rescue efforts is not available. Unions, environmental groups and health professionals push the Federal Agency to change this. Some defenders even say that heat waves must be named and classified on a simple scale, such as hurricanes, to increase public awareness of extreme heat risks. For example, a pilot program in Seville, Spain, appointed Heat Waves (similar to hurricanes), and classified them in three classifications according to gravity. Each category has triggered specific alerts and public health interventions such as cooling centers and well-being controls.
