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Martha Reeves knows a heat wave when she sees one but how about you? A heat wave is "an extended time interval of abnormally and uncomfortably hot and unusually humid weather. To be a "heat wave" such a period should last at least one day, but conventionally it lasts from several days to several weeks."
There's a long history of heat waves but, according to Dan Shapley there's something new in the mix: global warming. "The proliferation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere—due primarily to our burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of land for development—is trapping the sun's heat near the Earth's surface, leading to more frequent bouts of intense and prolonged heat," writes Shapley. "The temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere in the second half of the 20th Century were very likely higher than any other 50-year period in at least 500 years, and likely the highest in at least 1,300 years. Concurrent with that, extreme weather events have become more frequent in the past 50 years.
FEMA offers these protective measures but we all know this is an issue that's not going away unless serious changes occur.
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