Medical experts often call heat a “silent killer” because many people don’t notice the signs of heat stress until it is too late. But as climate change accelerates, the impacts of excessive heat are deafening. Last year, there were nearly 120,000 emergency room visits for heat-related illnesses in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). More than 90 percent of these visits took place between May and September, during the hottest summer on record in the country. It’s difficult to quantify exactly how many people die from heat because this factor is not often marked on death certificates, but the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are more than 1,300 heat-related mortalities annually - and that’s just in the U.S. With forecasters predicting another hotter than usual June, July and August, cities across the country are scrambling to prepare for another scorching summer. The good news: A new tool announced on Monday by the federal government could help people forecast potentially dangerous heat up to a week in advance and implement strategies to mitigate it. This tool is part of a suite of strategies governments and scientists are working on to tackle the climate change-fueled heat crisis slamming nations around the world. Today, we are exploring how these tools could help beat the heat - and why they still may not be enough. Sizzling Forecasts: NOAA’s National Weather Service and the CDC teamed up to create the new nationwide experimental heat forecasting system, known as HeatRisk. The interactive dashboard allows users to plug in their zip code to learn what the heat threats are for an upcoming week, denoted by different colors depending on the level of risk. At the lowest level, green areas represent little to no risk, while magenta marks the highest threat, indicating “a rare level of heat” that could last for days. With each color code, the index offers advice for cities and... |