The first significant heat wave of this season is affecting much of the Midwest to the Northeast this week, including Pennsylvania. That’s according to the National Weather Service. All of central and northern Pennsylvania is under a heat advisory until 8 p.m. on Friday, with heat index values up to 100 degrees.
WPSU’s Sydney Roach talked with Erica Smithwick, the director of Penn State’s Climate Consortium, about how climate change is leading to more severe and frequent extreme weather events in the region.
LISTEN to their conversation
Sydney Roach
Erica Smithwick, thanks for talking with us.
Erica Smithwick
My pleasure.
Sydney Roach
The heatwave that we’re experiencing this week, how does climate change play into that?
Erica Smithwick
Yeah, well, as I’m talking to you today, the temperature right now is about 10 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than we would normally see on a hot day in the summer in Pennsylvania. And climate change is making those extremes even more common.
It’s really loading the dice and making these events more common than we would have experienced. I know that when I first moved to Pennsylvania, almost 20 years ago now, having hot days, those days above 90 degrees, you would have them every once in a while. Maybe five a year would be the common number that you’d expect to see for the state.
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Well, the projections suggest that that number could go up to 30 [or] 35 days a year with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees. And so that’s exactly what we would expect to see under climate change scenarios with our highest emissions playing out and in the world, but especially here in Pennsylvania.
Sydney Roach
Are there any areas specifically in Pennsylvania that are being impacted more than others?
Erica Smithwick
Well, our southeastern part of the state is likely to see some of the most significant effects of this heat, especially when it’s coupled to humidity. And then we also have a lot of our urban areas that are going to be extremely sensitive, and people are going to be more vulnerable in these areas where you can actually escape the heat.
And so obviously, if you’re in a cooler area, an area with more trees and more vegetation growth, then you might be buffered from those extremes. But it’s really hard to escape that when you’re in an urban area.
Sydney Roach
What about for people in rural communities? What challenges do they face?
Erica Smithwick
Yeah, well, in rural communities, again, you have the issues related to natural hazards of flooding, you also do have effects. In our agricultural system, we have decreased yields in some of our farms that were unfortunately expected to increase in the future.
And also just access to continuous ability to adapt so that for example, the electricity grid, when we have these heat waves, it could be our rural communities that are more vulnerable to the collapse of the infrastructure. So that’s certainly something we’re starting to think about at Penn State.
Sydney Roach
Now, have we actually seen any examples of that happening so far [of] the electricity grid being impacted? The electricity grid being impacted?
Erica Smithwick
Yeah, well, we have examples in the previous heat waves and past years of school systems actually having to close their doors because of lack of electricity, inability to cool in times of heat stress, and so that’s definitely an effect that we’re likely to see happening.
And, you know, this is very consistent with the changes of more extremes that climate change is likely to bring. It’s not just that the average temperatures are going up; climate change is bringing these extremes. And these are extremes that our infrastructure really hasn’t been constructed in a way that would deal with them. And so that’s a real threat to most of our built-up communities.
Sydney Roach
You mentioned about schools having to close, but other than that, I mean, why does it matter? Why should people care about it being a few degrees higher than normal?
Erica Smithwick
Right, some days in Pennsylvania, we want it to be a few degrees warmer, right? But yeah, unfortunately, when we’re in these extreme heat days, it can have extensive issues for people that are more vulnerable. And these would be our older population and our younger population.
Our kids especially don’t have the ability to cool down in the same way that adults do. And so they are more vulnerable to heat exhaustion and heatstroke. But there are other symptoms as well, so lack of attention and ability to sleep. And that can have all sorts of cognitive impairment, not just not being able to pay attention when you’re maybe in school or in camp, or to your parents, but actually longer-term consequences that we really are only just starting to understand right now.
And of course, if you do get into the more serious concerns of heatstroke, those can be life-threatening. And this affects obviously, not just our kids, but our pets too. And we really need to be checking in on each other on these hot days.
Sydney Roach
You mentioned our infrastructures aren’t built for this. Does the consortium talk with legislators at all or you know, city councils? What kind of outreach are you doing to get the word out there?
Erica Smithwick
Yeah, so we have experts here at Penn State faculty and students who are working on issues related to this, whether it’s the energy and infrastructure, our grid, or whether it’s the built infrastructure, in our cities. And in our communities, there are people actively designing strategies to think about adaptation.
So, how do you build buildings that are more resilient to the kinds of extreme events that we’re likely to see in the future? So that’s one area that we’re investing in. And the consortium is ensuring that those teams as research teams are partnering with communities and ensuring that they’re meeting the needs of our local communities.
Sydney Roach
Are you hopeful for the future?
Erika Smithwick
I’m actually an optimist, believe it or not. And I think that’s because I’m engaged in the problem. And I know how to get smart people around me who are already thinking about ways of creating solutions that are going to benefit not just to the atmosphere and the environment, but people as well.
And when I see those teams actually coming together, and I’m seeing some of the innovation that is happening at Penn State, whether it’s in the laboratory or with our students in the educational space, I started to see that change is possible. It’s an uphill battle and some of the effects that are already baked into our system are clearly going to be playing out in negative ways over the next decade or more, but I also see that we know how to make the change. We know what is needed, we need to stop emitting greenhouse gas emissions. We know that we have other energy choices to move forward with. And we also know that we have other solutions to help people adapt. So we just need to shift our focus and shift our investments to those kinds of solutions.
And I think that that is a challenge. But I think that we are ready as a society. One of the things that I really get excited about now in an ironic way is that we’re actually talking about it. When I started thinking about the climate change issue, when many of us as scientists started to think about climate change, it was it was one of those NPR, you know, driveway moments. “Oh, there’s a story about climate change on the news!” Now you hear it all the time.
The fact that I’m talking with you means that we are paying attention and that gives me a lot of hope. When people start talking to each other, they start caring, and when they start caring, they start taking action. And so I think we’re getting there.
Sydney Roach
Erica Smithwick, thanks for talking with us.
Erica Smithwick
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
