With the formation this week of yet another summer heat dome over Texas and much of the American Southwest, many residents are struggling to cope with a sweltering new normal made worse by climate change.“It’s gotten hotter [for] longer,” Dan McAtee, a retired manufacturing engineer who’s lived in Austin, Texas, since 1980, told Yahoo News. “The hot spells have been extended.”The punishing heat keeps people like McAtee and his wife confined to air-conditioned spaces for most of the day.“We’re out early and back into the house or someplace with air conditioning, and then later on, when it cools off, we’re back out again,” he said.Mercury risingOn Tuesday, Austin hit 97° Fahrenheit, with a heat index (the way heat combined with humidity makes the air feel) of 110°. But there’s more at work than simply a seasonal warm-up.“This is Texas,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said at a Tuesday press conference addressing the rising number of heat-related illnesses in the city, “and yes, Texas has always been hot — but climate change is causing more extreme heat.”Research has shown that since the dawn of the industrial revolution, average temperatures in Texas have risen by 3 degrees Fahrenheit, and because of a rise in overall humidity, the heat index has grown at an even faster rate.That’s a dangerous combination for human health because when temperatures soar and the air becomes so saturated, sweat is not able to evaporate and cool down the body. In 2023, 334 people died from heat-related causes in Texas, according to data provided by state officials, the largest number ever reported there.How does your garden grow?A social science researcher and longtime Austin resident, Jennifer, who grew up in the border town of Laredo and asked that her last name be withheld from this article, has personally experienced the northward creep of extreme heat.“When I moved to Austin in 2001, there were seven days of weather over 100, and last year we had over two months that were over 100,” she said. “You have to reorganize your whole day.”That means generally avoi …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnWith the formation this week of yet another summer heat dome over Texas and much of the American Southwest, many residents are struggling to cope with a sweltering new normal made worse by climate change.“It’s gotten hotter [for] longer,” Dan McAtee, a retired manufacturing engineer who’s lived in Austin, Texas, since 1980, told Yahoo News. “The hot spells have been extended.”The punishing heat keeps people like McAtee and his wife confined to air-conditioned spaces for most of the day.“We’re out early and back into the house or someplace with air conditioning, and then later on, when it cools off, we’re back out again,” he said.Mercury risingOn Tuesday, Austin hit 97° Fahrenheit, with a heat index (the way heat combined with humidity makes the air feel) of 110°. But there’s more at work than simply a seasonal warm-up.“This is Texas,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said at a Tuesday press conference addressing the rising number of heat-related illnesses in the city, “and yes, Texas has always been hot — but climate change is causing more extreme heat.”Research has shown that since the dawn of the industrial revolution, average temperatures in Texas have risen by 3 degrees Fahrenheit, and because of a rise in overall humidity, the heat index has grown at an even faster rate.That’s a dangerous combination for human health because when temperatures soar and the air becomes so saturated, sweat is not able to evaporate and cool down the body. In 2023, 334 people died from heat-related causes in Texas, according to data provided by state officials, the largest number ever reported there.How does your garden grow?A social science researcher and longtime Austin resident, Jennifer, who grew up in the border town of Laredo and asked that her last name be withheld from this article, has personally experienced the northward creep of extreme heat.“When I moved to Austin in 2001, there were seven days of weather over 100, and last year we had over two months that were over 100,” she said. “You have to reorganize your whole day.”That means generally avoi …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
