Toward Understanding Temperature and Humidity Impacts on Human Health

Geography and the Environment Colloquium Series: “Toward Understanding Temperature and Humidity Impacts on Human Health.” 

Cascade Tuholske, assistant professor of human-environment geography, Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University. 

As human-driven climate change accelerates the frequency, duration, and intensity of heatwaves, communities worldwide face increasing harm from dangerous heat. However, for many vulnerable and moralized peoples, we lack a clear understanding of not just how impacts from extreme heat manifest, but we also lack even a baseline understanding of who is most often exposed to dangerous temperatures. In this talk, I will highlight several recent studies that advance our understanding of where extreme heat exposure is changing and how such changes are impacting human health and wellbeing.