The Reliance School

650 Words / 3 min. Read

Facing the Heat

Even if we manage to dramatically reduce global emissions, the CO2 we’ve already released from human activity may lead to an average temperature increase of 6°F by the end of this century.¹ This is a massive increase in heat energy, and it’s easy to underestimate the risk.

Each degree Celsius of warming can add up to 34 days of heat waves per year.² Extreme temperatures increase the risk of drought and wildfires (even in temperate regions),³ kill our food crops,⁴ stress our power grids,⁵ and increase violence and social unrest.⁶ And in humid areas, wet bulb temperatures as low as 88°F may be lethal without access to air conditioning or shelter.⁷

Extreme heat kills over 1,200 Americans each year (more than any other extreme weather event),^8,9 with over 2 million people currently at risk.¹⁰ Longer and more frequent heat waves are directly tied to our warming climate,¹¹ and 63% of people in America are projected to be at risk by 2050.¹² Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First, describes the threat in stark detail:

“Without protective clothing and heating, we die quickly in the cold; without air conditioning and water, we die just as quickly in the heat. When the body gets too hot, blood rushes to the skin in an attempt to cool off, abandoning the internal organs. At 102 or 103 degrees Fahrenheit, one might feel wobbly or pass out. At 106 degrees, the body convulses into seizures. Above 107 degrees, things start to break down at the cellular level. As the heat rises, the proteins unfold and the bonds that keep the structures together break. At the most fundamental level, your body unravels.”¹³

While the dangers of climate change may be difficult to project on a granular scale, we can say with certainty that the southernmost regions of America will be the hardest-hit.¹⁴ These areas already experience the highest temperatures in the nation,¹⁵ which will only increase over the coming decades. An analysis by the First Street Foundation concluded that:

“Nowhere is the danger more widespread than in the South, where global warming is expected to deliver an average of 20 extra days of triple-digit heat per year. In some southern states, such as Texas and Florida, residents could see over 70 consecutive days with the heat index topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit.”¹⁰

The 40th Parallel

As climate change worsens, the risks of extreme temperatures will extend northward. To help visualize this phenomenon, a recent study used climate-analog mapping to show that by the end of this century, American cities may have climates equivalent to areas 600 miles to the south.¹⁶

In 50 years, Minneapolis may have a climate similar to that of Kansas City; Denver may have the weather of Amarillo, Texas, and Houston may feel more like Mexico City.¹⁷ Although temperatures are projected to increase by a greater percentage in northern latitudes,¹⁸ since average temperatures are lower in these regions, extreme heat presents less of a risk.

In light of this, we recommend limiting your search to states above 40° north. That includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, and the states of New England. Exceptions to this are areas at high elevation (such as the Appalachian and Rocky mountains), which are projected to experience less heat risk than their surrounding regions.¹⁹

While this guideline will help you avoid regions that are facing high heat risk, just living further north isn’t a guarantee of resilience. So in our next post, we’ll take a look at two fundamental necessities for human survival. >> Climate Havens, Part 3: Freshwater & Farmland

Footnotes & References

1. Global warming in the pipeline (James Hansen et al, Cornell University)
2. Heat waves and climate change: Is there a connection? (Jeff Berardelli, Yale Climate Connection)
3. Climate Scientists Warn of a ‘Global Wildfire Crisis’ (Raymond Zhong, New York Times)
4. Climate change is affecting crop yields and reducing global food supplies (Deepak Ray, The Conversation)
5. Electricity Grid Resilience: Climate Change Is Expected to Have Far-reaching Effects (U.S. Government Accountability Office)
6. Interpersonal violence associated with hot weather (Rahini Mahendran, Rongbin Xu, Shanshan Li, Yuming Guo, The Lancet)
7. How hot is too hot for the human body? Our lab found heat + humidity gets dangerous faster than many people realize (W. Larry Kenney, Daniel Vecellio, Rachel Cottle, S. Tony Wolf, The Conversation)
8. Why Extreme Heat Is So Deadly (Tanya Lewis, Scientific American)
9. Weather Related Fatality and Injury Statistics (US Weather Service)
10. 2 million people in the U.S. may be exposed to dangerous heat today (Naema Ahmed, John Muyskens, The Washington Post)
11. Climate Change Indicators: Heat Waves (EPA)
12. More dangerous heat waves are on the way: See the impact by Zip code (John Muyskens, Andrew Ba Tran, Anna Phillips, Simon Ducroquet, Naema Ahmed, The Washington Post)
13. Documenting the terrifying fragility of human bodies in a burning world (Shannon Osaka, The Washington Post)
14. As Climate Changes, Southern States Will Suffer More Than Others (Brad Plumer, Nadja Popovich, The New York Times)
15. US Temperature Map (GISGeography)
16. Contemporary climatic analogs for 540 North American urban areas in the late 21st century (Matthew C. Fitzpatrick, Robert R. Dunn, Nature Communications)
17. What will climate feel like in 60 years? (University of Maryland)
18. Which parts of the planet are warming the fastest, and why? (Lindsay Fendt, Adam Schlosser, MIT Climate)
19. Probability-Weighted Ensembles of U.S. County-Level Climate Projections for Climate Risk Analysis (D. J. Rasmussen, Malte Meinshausen, Robert E. Kopp, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology)