Coupling Climate and Health Models to Support Extreme Heat Resilience

Extreme heat is invisible, silent, and deadly, adversely affecting human health, productivity, and well-being globally. Current state-of-the-art modeling and projections of heat-related illnesses or death generally do not account for the complex human factors that shape a person’s heat response and resilience based on diverse vulnerability, adaptive behavior, and varying environmental or built contexts. Dr. Vanos will provide insight into research completed on current and future human exposures to extreme heat in urban areas and considerations when working with data at multiple scales. As part of the presentation, she will detail her work on 1) new methods to quantify and link personal heat exposure, stress, and strain across diverse populations and climates; 2) applications of human heat exchange principals to predict survivability and maximum safe work capacity (livability) within climate projections; 3) a new delineation of humid and dry extreme heat based on human physiological models. The work will provide novel integration across atmospheric science, public health, human physiology, and sustainability to advance how we understand, manage, and mitigate heat illness and death, with implications for using heat-health projections in future decision-making.