Dangerous Texas Heat: Power Outages, Climate Change + Human Health

Texas faces another day of record-breaking excessive heat and the potential for major power outages. Climate change is leading to more heatwaves globally that pose dangerous threats to human health.

Yesterday, the high temperature at Houston Hobby airport soared to 104 degrees eclipsing the 1964 record of 100 degrees. The heat wave impacting Texas and much of the central United States is driving increased electric use. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT is urging a "conservation appeal" to Texans and Texas businesses during the hours of 2-8 p.m. today.

According to ERCOT, customers are being urged to take these measures due to record high electric demand and low wind. "While solar power is generally reaching near-full generation capacity, wind generation is currently generating significantly less than what it historically generated in this time period. Current projections show wind generation coming in less than 10 percent of its capacity," ERCOT said in a news release.

ERCOT manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers, representing about 90 percent of the state’s electric load.?

Extreme Heat: Is this the New Normal due to Climate Change?

Climate scientists say the new "normals" for high temps are changing due to global warming. According to the latest data, previously "normal temperatures"?were based on weather observations from 1981 to 2010. But last year climate experts at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information updated their hourly, daily, monthly, and annual "normals" for thousands of U.S. locations, states, regions—based on the weather experienced from 1991 to 2020.

Average annual temperatures for the contiguous United States from 1895 to 2020 (orange line), along with the warming trend of 0.16?Fahrenheit per decade (red line). Graph by NOAA Climate.gov, based on data from NCEI Climate at a Glance        

Their data analysis found that today, the normal annual temperatures across the country are warmer than the 20th-century average virtually everywhere. In Houston, for example, according to NOAA, in 1935 the average July temperature was 84.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Since 1996, Houston achieved July average temps at 87 degrees or higher five times - with four of those extra scorching summers occurring since 2009.

HEAT: the leading extreme weather killer

Excessive heat claimed an average of 138 lives per year in the U.S. from 1990 through 2019, according to the National Weather Service. That's higher than the average annual death tolls from flooding, 88, tornadoes, 65, and hurricanes or tropical storms, 45, in that 30-year-period.

Excessive heat is especially dangerous for health when our bodies cannot cool down at night. As reported in The New York Times, across the US,?summer nights have warmed at nearly twice the rate of days, with overnight low temperatures increasing 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit per century since 1895, when national temperature records began, compared to a daytime high increase of 0.7 degrees per century.

Residents in urban areas experience even hotter temperatures during summertime months than those living in suburban or rural areas due to the Urban Heat Island effect. Cities built with artificial heat-trapping surfaces of asphalt, concrete, and steel, can be 10-15 degrees hotter than surrounding suburban/rural areas. These heat-trapping materials, along with less vegetation and greenery interfere with nighttime cooling.

The Climate Psychiatry Alliance (CPA) offers toolkits in English, Spanish and Mandarin has a toolkits that identify the most vulnerable populations to extreme heat and provides proactive steps you can take to prevent heat-related illness.

Heat-related illness is preventable. But the warning signs of this potentially deadly hazard can vary depending on your age, location, individual health, and socio-economic circumstances, according to the Climate Psychiatry Alliance.

It's also important to note that many heat-related deaths occur in cars. Never leave children or pets in a car with no air-conditioning - even for a moment. Vehicles heat up quickly and that heat can be fatal to young children. Children are at a higher risk than adults of dying from heat stroke in a hot vehicle because their bodies heat up 3 to 5 times faster than adults.

Another highly-vulnerable population to extreme heat are seniors. Individuals over the age of 60 years are consistently the most susceptible to heat-related fatalities with over 82 percent of excess mortality occurring in this group. During heat waves, check on elderly relatives and neighbors especially those without air conditioning. If you are a senior, ask a friend or relative to check on you twice a day. ?

If you are experiencing symptoms of heat exhaustion, like a throbbing headache, dizziness, nausea, or feelings of confusion, make sure to get medical attention without delay.

Bonnie Schneider is a meteorologist and the author of "TAKING THE HEAT: How Climate Change is Affecting Your Mind, Body, and Spirit & What You Can Do About It" (Simon & Schuster)