European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 4, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                High Temps can be fatal a a we re havin a heat wave having heat  the old song goes and fancy Sun shades for cars do Hattte  William k. Stevens new York times what new yorkers and other northerners consider a heat wave often feels like a routine summer Day to. Residents of Dallas or Phoenix or Jacksonville a now scientists say that such feelings Are not just a matter of discomfort but also of life and death. Heat they have found generally begins killing people at lower temperatures in new York and other Northern cities than in the South and Southwest where people Are More acclimated to hot weather and in an attempt to create an Early warning system for killer heat Waves scientists have lately identified a special set of climatic conditions that appear to Send summer death rates soaring and that also have much to do with the regional variations in mortality thresholds. Not just any stretch of extremely hot weather they have found trips the temperature threshold switch that causes mortality to soar. Rather the switch is tripped by one special sharply defined sort of extremely hot humid oppressive air mass that Only infrequently develops Over a Given area overwhelming people s ability to adapt. If its arrival and duration can be reliably forecast the scientists believe cautionary warnings can be issued and lives can be saved the extraordinarily oppressive weather system responsible for most heat related deaths is described in a paper to be published m a forthcoming Issue of the journal environmental health perspectives it can afflict any number of cities and is essentially the same Hod of system in each City but so tar it has been studied most thoroughly in St Louis there it brings temporal res that reach at least 96 degrees the recently established threshold for a surge m mortality in that City. It also displays a number of other features that distinguish it from nine other kinds of summer air masses some of them also quite hot and it combines humid air from the tropics with dry torrid air borne on winds from southwestern deserts these huge systems originate in one part of the United states but retain their coherence As they move from Region to Region they bring Clear skies and High nighttime temperatures that in St Louis stay near 80 degrees. This air mass dominates St. Louis s summer weather Only 7 percent of the time on the average. It appears several times in some years and not at All in others. When it does arrive it generally stays in place for several Days. The longer it stays the More people die As Many As 10 to 20 a Day in a big City. Quot by the time the fifth Day Rolls around. You Are killing a lot of people Quot said or. A Laurence s. Kalkstein of the University of Delaware s Center for climatic research who has come up with the findings. A specialist in the Field of medical. Climatology he is now a visiting scientist at the environmental Protection Agency in Washington where he coordinates a major research project on the health implications of global warming. According to a preliminary analysis of a selected Sample of 10 cities by Kalkstein three besides new York and St. Louis Are Likely to to visited by a killing air mass Boston Philadelphia and Memphis Chicago and san Francisco Are. Susceptible to a lesser degree whal makes these air masses so deadly said Kalkstein is that their parties a combination of features suddenly pushes Tio level of heat stress far above the summer Norm  people have become adapted in northeastern cities he said a hot oppressive air mass does t occur that often so it has tremendous Impact Quot in the South and Southwest he said the summer Norm May itself bring extremely High temperatures but in the absence of a sudden jump to another level of heat stress there is no spurt in deaths. Since southerners Are acclimated to the higher temperatures they normally experience those Normal temperatures cause no More deaths per capita than the lower temperatures northerners normally. Experience. The researchers have ruled out the possibility that the most susceptible people have already succumbed in the South. The paper in environmental health perspectives is the latest in a series by Kalkstein and colleagues that in the last 14 months have dealt with regional variations in weather related deaths in the Early 1980s, Kalkstein devised a now Index of weather discomfort the weather stress Index it assumed that the discomfort caused by any Given set of weather conditions varies depending on the Normal weather people Are used to in their area. C developed under a contract with the National oceanographic and atmospheric administration the measure is incorporated in the discomfort indexes of today s routine weather reports in the uni taxi slates now Kalkstein and colleagues m both government and Academia have extended their research on regional differences from discomfort to mortality and the role of Large a weather systems in boosting it among the findings common to ail areas of the United states is that heal not air pollution is the primary Short term killer associated with summer weather systems a Over the Long run Quot Kal Slom said Quot air pollution is very damaging to human health Quot but on a Day to Fay level tie said it appears that heat Rattler than the More concentrated pollution that often a compare j it is More important in pushing susceptible people Over the Edge mortality data Are Vrtol yet available for this year s hot spells in Phoenix los Angeles new York Washington and other cities but Kalkstein said he had Quot no doubt Quot that they have caused a lot of damage. The mid july hot spell in new York with its temperatures in the 90s, was Quot a candidate Quot for the most damaging category to said but its Impact May have been less than it would have been say in  heat Waves become less damaging Laler in the season this is because people become More acclimated As the season progresses Kalkstein believes. Last year Kalkstein and a colleague Robert e. Davis of the University of Virginia reported on a study of mortality data and temperature records that revealed the regional differences in susceptibility to heat. For a nut if of cities they established threshold a temperatures at which deaths begin to Rise. A in new York Lor instance the threshold is 92 degrees in St Louis 9g, in Dallas 103, and in los Angeles 8t the los Angeles figure is Low because the weather station where if was taken is at the Airport which is cooled by Iho nearby Ocean. A temperatures downtown and in the valleys Are higher in Many Southern and southwestern cities that Are normally hot and whose residents have become acclimated no threshold can be detected and excess deaths generally do not occur Phoenix has Boon one such City a the big question now Kalkstein said is whether the 120 degree plus temperatures recorded in Phoenix earlier this year by far the highest Ever a were such a big departure from the Norm that heat related deaths soared for the first time. Changes in the Liml environment especially development and construction Are probably Rosf Ponsillo fur whatever change May to taking place m Phoenix s climate to said although global warming could have similar a flecks Over a broader area m to e future saturday August 4, 1s90 the stars and stripes aaa Pago 13