Anthropogenic Warming & Population Growth May Double US Heat Stress by the Late 21st Century

Heat stress has led to massive human morbidity and mortality in recent years. Severe heat stress (HS) events in the Midwest and the Gulf of Mexico coastal plains during the summers of 2019 and 2020, as well as many others during the 2010–2019 decade, are representative of the types of extreme hot and humid events expected to become more common in the contiguous United States (CONUS) in future. The HS is expected to become more severe due to an increase in frequency, duration, severity, and spatiotemporal extent of extreme warmth and moisture, which is an important, nonlinear, and often‐neglected component. While these different contributing factors are often investigated independently, we argue that a holistic analysis that integrates them is more informative from the standpoint of the potential impact of HS exposure. The HS events likely to significantly increase across densely populated regions of the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, coastal Pacific Northwest, central California, and Great Lakes region. - AGU