An area of intense warm weather the so called “heat belt” with at least one day a year where the heat index reaches 125 Fahrenheit (52 °C) is expected to cover a region of the US home to more than 100 million people by 2053 , according to a new study. The research, conducted by the nonprofit First Street Foundation, used a peer-reviewed model built with public and third-party data to estimate heat risk at a so-called “hyper-local” scale of 30 square meters.
The mission of the First Street Foundation is to make climate risk modeling accessible to the public, government and industry representatives such as real estate investors and insurers. A key finding of the study was that heat exceeding the National Weather Service’s highest category threshold called “Extreme Danger,” or above 125F was projected to affect 8.1 million people in 2023 and rise to 107 million people in 2053. A 13-fold increase. This would include a geographic area stretching from northern Texas and Louisiana to Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin – inland areas far from the milder weather often found along the coast.
Heat index, also known as apparent temperature, is what the human body actually feels like outside temperature when the relative humidity is combined with the air temperature. To build their model, the research team examined satellite-derived land surface temperatures and air temperatures from 2014 to 2020 to help understand the exact relationship between the two measurements.
This information was further studied by factoring in elevation, how water is absorbed in the area, distance to surface water, and distance to the coast. The model was then adjusted to future climate conditions using a “middle-of-the-road” scenario proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in which carbon dioxide levels begin to decline by mid-century but do not reach net zero by 2100. On “extreme danger” days, it is expected that areas across the country will experience warmer temperatures with varying degrees of resilience.
“This increase in local temperatures has significant consequences for communities that are not acclimated to warmer weather compared to their normal climate,” the report said. For example, a 10 percent increase in temperature in northeastern Maine can be just as dangerous as a 10 percent increase in southwestern Texas, despite the higher absolute temperatures observed in Texas.
The largest projected shift in local temperature occurred in Miami-Dade County, Florida, where the high is currently 103 degrees Fahrenheit seven days a year. By 2053, that number is expected to increase to 34 days at 103 degrees. And the increase in air conditioning use likely to result from such temperature spikes will strain power grids, the report warned, leading to more frequent and longer-lasting blackouts.
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