Summer Nights Heating Up in Wisconsin

Tuesday, July 9th, 2024 -- 10:01 AM

(Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin Public Radio) As the world heats up, a recent report finds summer nights are warming more than days across the globe and even cooler states like Wisconsin are seeing more tropical nights.

According to Danielle Kaeding with Wisconsin Public Radio, the report from Climate Central, an independent group of scientists, examined the number of days where the lowest nighttime temperatures exceeded 20 and 25 degrees Celsius (68 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit) through the lens of global warming.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends keeping room temperatures around 68 degrees for a good night’s rest. In Wisconsin, eight cities saw anywhere from 92 to 138 additional warmer nights in the last decade than they would have seen without human-induced climate change.

On average, the cities ranged from between nine to 14 more hot nights per year. State health professionals say hotter nights prevent people from getting rest and recovering from daytime heat.

“When we know that our sleep is disrupted, that really stresses our bodies out and can have all kinds of negative effects on how clearly we’re thinking and feeling stressed out,” said Anne Getzin, a Milwaukee family physician with Healthy Climate Wisconsin. “But it can also put extra stress on systems like your heart and increase chances of having a heart attack or a stroke.”

The report “Sleepless Nights” compared actual nighttime temperatures to climate models that estimate how warm nights would have been without global warming. The difference between those two numbers revealed the number of hotter nights added due to climate change.

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