Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events, and US Health Impacts: What Can We Say?

Abstract

Objective: 

Address how climate change impacts on a group of extreme weather events could affect US public health.

Methods: 

A literature review summarizes arguments for, and evidence of, a climate change signal in select extreme weather event categories, projections for future events, and potential trends in adaptive capacity and vulnerability in the United States.

Results: 

Western US wildfires already exhibit a climate change signal. The variability within hurricane and extreme precipitation/flood data complicates identifying a similar climate change signal.

Conclusions: 

Health impacts of extreme events are not equally distributed and are very sensitive to a subset of exceptional extreme events. Cumulative uncertainty in forecasting climate change driven characteristics of extreme events and adaptation prevents confidently projecting the future health impacts from hurricanes, wildfires, and extreme precipitation/floods in the United States attributable to climate change.