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How climate change will impact outdoor activities in the US

How climate change will impact outdoor activities in the US

Person on bike near ocean on a sunny day. U.S. map shows change in normalized outdoor days. Red areas, or fewer days, include the Southeast…

Tuesday, Oct 22

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Person on bike near ocean on a sunny day. U.S. map shows change in normalized outdoor days. Red areas, or fewer days, include the Southeast such as South Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. Green areas, or more days, include Northwest coast and inland. Maps shows parts of Alaska and Wyoming are colored light blue and have under 40 annual outdoor days. Hawaii and the coast of Southern California is dark red, meaning they have 300 annual outdoor days. It can be hard to connect a certain amount of average global warming with one’s everyday experience, so researchers at MIT have devised a different approach to quantifying the direct impact of climate change. Instead of focusing on global averages, they came up with the concept of “outdoor days”: the number days per year in a given location when the temperature is not too hot or cold to enjoy normal outdoor activities, such as going for a walk, playing sports, working in the garden, or dining outdoors.

In a study published earlier this year, the researchers applied this method to compare the impact of global climate change on different countries around the world, showing that much of the global south would suffer major losses in the number of outdoor days, while some northern countries could see a slight increase. Now, they have applied the same approach to comparing the outcomes for different parts of the United States, dividing the country into nine climatic regions, and finding similar results: Some states, especially Florida […]

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