In the United States, by the year 2053, some 107 million Americans will experience at least one day of extreme heat per year. It is a day when the wind chill is 52 degrees Celsius. By 2023, 8.1 million Americans will experience it at least one day a year, researchers at the First Street Foundation write in a new study.
The perceived temperature is a combination of the actual temperature and the humidity. The researchers examined how those two factors influenced each other between 2014 and 2020 and then applied it to future climate models from UN agency IPCC.
The region in the center of the country will be most affected by extreme heat. The area stretches from northern Texas and Louisiana to Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Both coasts of the country maintain a more temperate climate due to the influence of the oceans. But it will also get warmer in the coastal areas, the researchers say. For example, the Miami area of Florida is expected to go from the situation now, seven days a year when it is 39.4 degrees Celsius, to 34 such days in 2053.