{"id":8696,"date":"2022-11-18T10:11:28","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T16:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=8696"},"modified":"2022-11-18T10:11:28","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T16:11:28","slug":"uw-madison-grad-students-work-with-climatologist-on-tool-to-alert-communities-to-dangerous-heat-levels","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-madison-grad-students-work-with-climatologist-on-tool-to-alert-communities-to-dangerous-heat-levels\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-Madison grad students work with climatologist on tool to alert communities to dangerous heat levels"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
From left to right, graduate students Sara Pabich, Elizabeth Berg, and Becky Rose are collecting data for a new heat warning system that could help save lives. PHOTO: ALTHEA DOTZOUR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As dangerous heat levels are breaking records across the United States and the world, three University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison graduate students are collecting data to inform a heat warning system based on health outcomes \u2014 a tool they hope could eventually save lives.<\/p>\n

Nelson Institute Environment & Resources PhD students Elizabeth Berg and Becky Rose and Public Health and Public Affairs masters degree student Sara Pabich are tracking extreme heat events in six cities, including Madison and Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re working with climatologist Larry Kalkstein as a part of the\u00a0Wisconsin Heat Health Network<\/a>, which is supported by\u00a0UniverCity Alliance<\/a>\u00a0and collaborators that include the City of Madison, Milwaukee County, City of Milwaukee, and Dane County. Their research will inform a warning system in Madison and Milwaukee based on health outcomes that considers mortality and weather data rather than only meteorology.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople\u2019s response to heat is more important than the intensity of the heat itself. We are trying to determine when people are most sensitive to heat waves,\u201d said Kalkstein, who is the president of Applied Climatologists, Inc. and chief heat science advisor for the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. \u201cHealth practitioners want to know when people are most vulnerable to heat related illnesses and deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stakes are high. According to a\u00a02021 report from the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts<\/a>, the number of days that will exceed 90 degrees in Wisconsin is expected to triple by mid-century. Extreme heat already causes more fatalities than any other weather-related event in the state and the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most direct hopeful outcome will be saving people\u2019s lives during these heat events that will become more and more frequent and severe,\u201d said Rose, who is advised by\u00a0Nelson Institute associate professors Asl\u0131g\u00fcl G\u00f6\u00e7men<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Annemarie Schneider.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
The UW\u2013Madison Commencement ceremony on May 13, 2022, was unseasonably hot. Climate change is expected to make heat events more common. PHOTO: ALTHEA DOTZOUR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In practice, the new warning system could help policymakers make decisions for how their population can stay healthy during extreme heat. This could include neighbors deciding to check in on an elderly resident and a city opening more cooling centers throughout a community affected by extreme heat.<\/p>\n

Berg works in the\u00a0Department of Agronomy<\/a>\u00a0and Nelson Institute\u00a0Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE)<\/a>\u00a0affiliate, Chris Kucharik\u2019s lab. She has been working with Kalkstein for more than two years and said it\u2019s important for leaders to consider the locations and demographics of those who are being affected disproportionately by the heat.<\/p>\n

In Milwaukee, Berg is analyzing more specific health data by zip code instead of the entire city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve already known that extreme heat doesn\u2019t impact everyone equally,\u201d said Berg, noting that factors like housing and socioeconomic status are contributing factors. \u201cI\u2019d love for this to be a starting point for not just increasing communication about heat, but to make it easier for cities to target interventions specifically where they\u2019re needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madison and Milwaukee became involved in 2020 when UCA Managing Director Gavin Luter organized a group of interested stakeholders to have an initial networking meeting about heat and health. This group included Dane County, the City of Madison, the Sustainable Madison Committee, the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts, and UW\u2013Madison\u2019s Global Health Institute.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the group became the Heat Health Network and expanded to include representatives from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Milwaukee County\u2019s Office of Emergency Management, the City of Milwaukee Sustainability Office, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, UW\u2013Madison\u2019s agronomy department, a University of Minnesota-Twin Cities graduate student, and Public Health Madison & Dane County.<\/p>\n

Pilot program at work<\/strong><\/h2>\n

These collaborators are coordinating with the National Weather Service\u2019s Sullivan office this summer to evaluate the pilot program. They hope the lessons learned in Madison and Milwaukee will support exploring the feasibility of expanding the heat health warning system around the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole purpose of this at the end of the summer is to compare all of the data to see how closely it follows the National Weather Service\u2019s heat advisories,\u201d Pabich said. \u201cWe want this system to be effective and replicable to other at-risk areas in the state. Essentially, we want it to align with the National Weather Service but also add the human mortality rate component.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Climatologist Larry Kalkstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kalkstein\u2019s algorithm factors in historical health data, historical air mass types and frequency of each type, and calculated heat wave intensity, to produce one of three heat wave categories that increase numerically by risk.<\/p>\n

The data collection site has been running since mid-May and has been adjusted to warn stakeholders and meteorologists when a city is in the top 5% of excessive heat conditions. The student researchers track the data daily, comparing how the algorithm\u2019s heat warnings align with warnings from the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

This work is financially supported through the Climate-Ready States and Cities Initiative through the Centers for Disease Control that was secured by DHS.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center<\/a>, which aims to build individual and community climate resilience in the wake of climate change, is funding separate but related work to implement a heat ranking system. Other cities currently being studied include Los Angeles; Miami; Kansas City, Mo.; Seville, Spain; and Athens, Greece.<\/p>\n

This summer marked a milestone for Seville, which became the\u00a0first city in the world to implement the ranking program<\/a>. The city also\u00a0named its first heat wave Zoe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just glad to have a system that is based on health outcomes and not strictly on meteorology,\u201d Kalkstein said. \u201cIt\u2019s very important to have that because most of the stakeholders respond to emergency room visits, mortality \u2014 all of these things that are really important when it comes to heat waves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cities across the nation and world are taking notice. Kalkstein said he\u2019s fielded inquiries from New Orleans, South Korea, and Brazil and \u201cwouldn\u2019t be surprised\u201d if about a dozen more cities joined next year.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In Madison and Milwaukee, the next step is to evaluate.<\/p>\n

Kalkstein said a summer\u2019s worth of data will inform if the algorithm should be adjusted. He also suggested forming a heat taskforce to discuss and coordinate what policies the cities are implementing when a heat warning is called.<\/p>\n

This is important because if the ranking system is implemented, municipalities would need to make sure residents understand it and what resources they can use to stay cool, safe, and healthy.<\/p>\n

After observing the data for about two months, Berg said she can confirm that extreme heat is more dangerous in areas with more temperate and less consistently warm climates, like Madison.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the U.S., it\u2019s been the places that have much more seasonal variation where we have met those metrics for dangerous heat waves,\u201d Berg said.<\/p>\n

Pabich, who is also a climate data assistant with Dane County, is looking forward to discussing the public education component of implementing a new ranking system.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really love the public health angle of combining how the environment affects public health and what we are doing both at the county level and then what the Wisconsin Department of Health Services is eventually going to do with this information,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Rose said she hopes the Wisconsin Heat Health Network\u2019s work will result in meaningful policy changes not only like opening cooling centers, but implementing protections for workers whose jobs keep them outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is connected,\u201d Rose said. \u201cHealth is a part of the picture, but it\u2019s also tightly bound with economic wellbeing and social wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Written by Abigail Becker<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/news.wisc.edu\/grad-students-work-with-climatologist-on-tool-to-alert-communities-to-dangerous-heat-levels\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As dangerous heat levels are breaking records across the United States and the world, three University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison graduate students are collecting data to inform a heat warning system based on health outcomes \u2014 a tool they hope could eventually save lives. Nelson Institute Environment & Resources PhD students Elizabeth Berg and Becky Rose and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":8699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[103],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-8696","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-madison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/8696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=8696"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=8696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}