NEWS
Extreme Heat Belt Could Hit US by 2053
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More than 100 million Americans could find themselves living in an extreme heat belt due to global warming, a new study has found.
According could NBC, a report conducted by the nonprofit research group First Street Foundation found that an extreme “heat belt” reaching as far north as Chicago is beginning to take shape. The temperature change could see residents dealing with temps up to 125 degrees by 2053.
Today we published “The 6th National Risk Assessment: Hazardous Heat”, and publicly released the property specific extreme heat risk data for 145 million properties across the contiguous U.S. View your home’s Heat Factor on https://t.co/ZDR9KYM6aG.
— First Street Foundation (@FirstStreetFdn) August 15, 2022
“Everybody is affected by increasing heat, whether it be absolute increases in dangerous days or it’s just a local hot day,” said First Street Foundation’s chief research officer, Jeremy Porter, a professor and the director of quantitative methods in social sciences at the City University of New York.
The study predicts that by 2053, a quarter of the US will be in the extreme “heat belt” stretching from northern Texas and Louisiana borders to Illinois, Indiana, and even into parts of Wisconsin.
And for many residents of the US, they won’t even have to wait until 2053 to see those hotter temperatures.
According to MarketWatch, the First Street model found that 50 US counties – home to 8 million people – are expected to experience temperatures of up to 125 degrees by 2023.
The study found that the most severe shift in local temperatures is located in Miami-Dade county in southern Florida.
“We’re talking about 125 degrees, when the joints of bridges swell, railway lines buckle and become a hazard for trains, when airplanes need extended runways to take off or sink into the tarmac because it’s so hot,” First Street, CEO and founder Matthew Eby, told MarketWatch. “Cement and steel will go to over 140 degrees, which would instantly burn your skin or if your dog goes outside, it would burn its paws. These are the crazy temperatures we’re talking about.”
