Climate change is intensifying and lengthening extreme heat episodes, like those smothering Texas and the Southwest in recent weeks. Now, it’s the Northeast with the high-temp warning.
“It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” is a distinction that Americans love to repeat. But the unlucky Northeast is about to suffer both this weekend.
Few regions are immune, it seems as climate change has been linked to heat waves that are hotter and last longer than in the past. They’re popping up in unexpected places, too. And all of them are increasing the risk of heat-related illnesses and death. And the spiking temperatures renewed attention on whether an aged U.S. power grid can withstand the extra strain as households and businesses send demand surging when they power air conditioners and fans to try to cool off. A push for electric vehicles, heat pumps and other technology to wean the U.S. off the fossil fuels CL00, +1.30% whose emissions are driving climate change will also add to high demand on the U.S. power grid.
“Hurricanes, tornadoes and flash floods drive more media attention because of the innate fascination with the visual intensity of those types of hazards,” said Craig Ramseyer, an assistant professor who studies climate modeling in the department of geography at Virginia Tech University. “However, heat does not tend to be as fascinating and it becomes very difficult to communicate the danger to the public.
Who’s most at risk in high heat? From 1979 to 2018, more than 11,000 Americans died from heat-related illness, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And in a recent study, researchers concluded that heat-related deaths in the U.S. may be “substantially larger than previously reported.”
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