A Flexible Framework for Quantifying the Human Health Risk of Extreme Temperature Events

Register Here

Extreme temperature events – both heat waves and cold snaps – pose significant hazards to human health, with underserved and vulnerable communities often hit hardest. With these events projected to become more common and more extreme in the future, flexible tools are needed to assess their current and future risk across a variety of durations and thresholds. To address this need, we utilize intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves, frequently used in hydrology, as the basis for a flexible framework evaluating temperature extremes. The information-dense nature of IDFs permits coverage of several return periods (multi-year to multi-decade) and event lengths (2 hours to >10 days) in a compact visual format. Enhancements incorporating near-extreme events and uncertainty quantification provide additional utility in a range of applications including real-time event classification, integration with model projections, and use of health-focused metrics such as heat index and wind chill. Altogether, this framework complements a broader…