Metropolitan Los Angeles – home to almost 18 million people – faces a future of more frequent, intense, and humid heat waves. Local climate variabilities factor into their impact. Credit: Adobe Stock/siajames
In Brief:
No stranger to hot weather, the region is facing more humid heat waves that test the adaptability of its residents. But different areas feel different effects.
Like much of the planet, Southern California is expected to experience more heat waves in the future due to Earth’s changing climate. And some of these will feel increasingly humid, as long-term forecasts call for muggy spells more typically associated with Florida or eastern Texas.
To begin to understand what these changes could mean across the greater Los Angeles area, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California mapped how extreme heat and humidity patterns vary with regional geography. The results underscore how air temperature alone does not tell the full story of dangerous heat.
“We can’t just look at air temperature when we talk about heat wave impacts,” said study author Anamika Shreevastava, a NASA postdoctoral program fellow at JPL. “People tend to get acclimatized to where they live. We have to understand how anomalous conditions are making a difference in what people are used to.”
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Climate change is fueling longer, hotter, and more frequent heat waves. In the U.S., extreme heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer, causing more deaths than hurricanes and floods, according to the National Weather Service.
Greater Los Angeles is a prime example of an urban heat island – cities and suburbs woven with heat-trapping concrete and asphalt that lead to warmer temperatures than nearby rural areas that have more vegetation. Bordered by mountains and the ocean, the Greater L.A. area encompasses suburbs and skyscrapers, with a dense population and disparities in green space. It includes several counties, tens of thousands of square miles, and more than 18 million people, making it a compelling test bed for heat wave research.
Made using NASA’s ECOSTRESS instrument, this map shows land-surface temperatures, or how hot the land is to the touch, in much of L.A. County on Aug. 14, 2020. Peak land-surface temperature in the San Fernando Valley hit 128.3 degrees Fahrenheit (53.5 degrees Celsius), while coastal areas stayed cooler. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Metropolitan Los Angeles – home to almost 18 million people – faces a future of more frequent, intense, and humid heat waves. Local climate variabilities factor into their impact. Credit: Adobe Stock/siajames
In Brief:
No stranger to hot weather, the region is facing more humid heat waves that test the adaptability of its residents. But different areas feel different effects.
Like much of the planet, Southern California is expected to experience more heat waves in the future due to Earth’s changing climate. And some of these will feel increasingly humid, as long-term forecasts call for muggy spells more typically associated with Florida or eastern Texas.
To begin to understand what these changes could mean across the greater Los Angeles area, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California mapped how extreme heat and humidity patterns vary with regional geography. The results underscore how air temperature alone does not tell the full story of dangerous heat.
“We can’t just look at air temperature when we talk about heat wave impacts,” said study author Anamika Shreevastava, a NASA postdoctoral program fellow at JPL. “People tend to get acclimatized to where they live. We have to understand how anomalous conditions are making a difference in what people are used to.”
Get NASA’s Climate Change News
Climate change is fueling longer, hotter, and more frequent heat waves. In the U.S., extreme heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer, causing more deaths than hurricanes and floods, according to the National Weather Service.
Greater Los Angeles is a prime example of an urban heat island – cities and suburbs woven with heat-trapping concrete and asphalt that lead to warmer temperatures than nearby rural areas that have more vegetation. Bordered by mountains and the ocean, the Greater L.A. area encompasses suburbs and skyscrapers, with a dense population and disparities in green space. It includes several counties, tens of thousands of square miles, and more than 18 million people, making it a compelling test bed for heat wave research.
Made using NASA’s ECOSTRESS instrument, this map shows land-surface temperatures, or how hot the land is to the touch, in much of L.A. County on Aug. 14, 2020. Peak land-surface temperature in the San Fernando Valley hit 128.3 degrees Fahrenheit (53.5 degrees Celsius), while coastal areas stayed cooler. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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