Overlapping vulnerabilities to extreme heat and COVID-19 in New York City

Abstract:

The shelter-in-place policy in NYC, enacted to reduce transmission rates of COVID-19 in summer 2020 has led to an interruption of worker commute patterns and an increase in time spent in residences. This shift in living patterns has fundamentally impacted the way people are exposed to various weather hazards. Here we explore the combined impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic with NYC Department of Health case data, socioeconomic vulnerability indicators, and high resolution numerical simulations of extreme heat in New York, the first epicenter of the pandemic in the US. Our work focuses on July 2020, when temperatures reached over 35°C, and at least two heat waves were recorded by the US National Weather Service.

We use the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, coupled to a multi-layer urban parameterization as a simulation tool. We also modify Building Energy Model (BEM) to account for partial air conditioning (AC) adoption as recorded by the NYC Housing and Vacancy Survey. We estimate the impacts of summer heat via two simulations: one with no AC adoption to estimate potential indoor temperature without cooling, and another with full AC adoption to estimate operational costs of cooling during extreme heat as indicators of negative impacts of indoor extreme heat. To map shared heat and COVID-19 risk, we employ a multi-hazard risk framework to map areas of high risk to indoor heat and COVID-19 variables (e.g., positive and mortality rates), accounting for socioeconomic vulnerability indicators like median household income and overcrowding. Our results highlight how existing socioeconomic disparities in exposure to heat are exacerbated by COVID-19 and related mitigation policies.