Back-to-school season is getting hotter

Today is Labor Day, the unofficial end to the summer season and the time of year when kids starting filtering back into classrooms. However, the summertime heat and humidity doesn’t stop cranking just because school is starting. In fact, as the summertime heat lasts longer into the cooler months, it is causing safety and health concerns across some school districts in the United States including here at home in the Northeast.

A couple of weeks ago, schools in the southern United States and even as far north as New York City had to close their doors because it was too hot. We know all about “snow days” during the winter, but could we be heading for “extreme heat” days during summer? It’s starting to look that way as cooling degree days, a measure of cooling demand, have increased during the back-to-school period since 1970. Cooling degree days equals the sum of daily average degrees above 65 degrees Fahrenheit from July 17th to September 8th.

It has been proven that over the last decade, the back-to-school cooling demand has increased, nationally, by about 34 percent due to human-caused climate change. That average nearly doubles when talking about Burlington, Vermont. Schools in the Queen City have experienced a 62 percent increased demand for cooling degree days and it’s only getting worse year after year.

The rise in cooling demand will likely continue as the planet warms, and schools will need critical infrastructure and building upgrades to keep up with this off the chart trend. Unfortunately, this will result in higher operating costs to maintain safe, comfortable temperatures for our future generation of young learners.

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