This article explains how climate change is intensifying humid heat, the dangerous combination of high temperature and high humidity, by increasing atmospheric moisture, compromising the body's ability to cool itself, and raising the frequency of dangerously high temperatures.
The resource includes an interactive humid heat GIS index, downloadable graphics, and an explainer video by meteorologist Shel Winkley.
Use the four downloadable graphics and other accompanying activities or materials to create four stations (impacts of humid heat on health, how climate change intensifies the problem, dangers of humidity and heat, humid heat hotspots) that students walk through.
Have students choose two regions of the world, analyze them using the interactive GIS humid heat index, and compare them. Pair this with other interactive maps about the prevalence of other climate impacts (e.g., hurricanes), so students are comparing the effects of climate change around the world.
Interdisciplinary Connections:
Biology:
Tie humid heat to an investigation of thermoregulation or water properties to deepen students' understanding of why humid heat is more dangerous than dry heat at the same temperature.
Extend this by having students research how different animals adapt their cooling mechanisms to hot, humid environments.
Social Studies:
Use the interactive GIS humid heat index alongside maps of population density, poverty rates, and access to air conditioning to examine why humid heat disproportionately affects low-income communities and countries in the Global South.
Connect to history by examining heat-related disasters (e.g., the 1995 Chicago heat wave) and analyzing how policy responses did or did not protect vulnerable populations.
Health:
Pair the article with a lesson on heat-related illness, warning signs, and first-aid responses.
Have students develop a heat safety plan for an outdoor event in a high-humidity environment.
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Climate Central
Climate Central is an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing climate and how it affects people’s lives.
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