{"id":306388,"date":"2026-07-27T10:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T10:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/306388\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T10:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T10:50:07","slug":"will-climate-change-make-plague-filled-nyc-summers-like-this-one-the-new-norm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/306388\/","title":{"rendered":"Will climate change make plague-filled NYC summers like this one the new norm?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extreme heat<\/a> and wildfire smoke<\/a>, flash flood warnings<\/a> and the second deadly Legionnaires\u2019 outbreak<\/a> in two years \u2014 not to mention a rise in tick-borne illnesses<\/a>. If it feels like this New York summer has featured a biblical number of plagues, you’re not alone.<\/p>\n

Policy experts say climate change is exacerbating all of these public health threats in one way or another, and experiencing multiple, overlapping climate-related health hazards is likely to become more common.<\/p>\n

And while climate change hasn\u2019t been linked to the explosive diarrhea<\/a> New Yorkers are getting from a food-borne parasite \u2014 another headline of the summer \u2014 there is evidence that the extreme weather events caused by climate change could contribute to more outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, food safety experts say.<\/p>\n

The onslaught of climate-driven public health threats, both emerging and familiar, is likely to place more pressure on public health departments amid cuts to both climate<\/a> and public health<\/a> work at the federal level, the officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Yorkers are not just experiencing one kind of weather at a time anymore,\u201d said Louise Yeung, the city\u2019s chief climate officer. \u201cWe are in a new kind of climate that is hotter and wetter, and we are seeing a lot more of these climate threats happening at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeung emphasized that not everyone experiences the threat of climate change equally<\/a>, noting that Black New Yorkers are at higher risk of dying from extreme heat, and that people with lower incomes may struggle to afford the utility costs associated with air conditioning.<\/p>\n

New York City has been reclassified<\/a> in recent years as a subtropical climate, with the winters getting milder and summers remaining hot and humid.<\/p>\n

By the middle of this century, New York City is expected to experience between 14 and 32 days with temperatures over 95 degrees each year, up from about four historically, according to the New York State Climate Impacts Assessment<\/a>. At the same time, flooding is expected to become more prevalent<\/a> as a result of increased precipitation and sea level rise, the report finds.<\/p>\n

But climate change also contributes to public health threats in less obvious ways, including by increasing the risk of certain \u201cvector-borne\u201d diseases transmitted to humans by organisms such as ticks, mosquitoes and bacteria, said Dr. Ashish Jha, a senior fellow at the \u200aHarvard Kennedy School\u2019s Belfar Center for Science and International Affairs.<\/p>\n

Dr. Alister Martin, the city health commissioner, has mentioned climate change multiple times this summer as one factor putting the city at higher risk of Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreaks and city officials increasingly talk about it as a recurring, seasonal issue.<\/p>\n

Some city councilmembers are proposing<\/a> that the health department operate a summer Legionnaires\u2019 hotline to answer New Yorkers\u2019 questions and concerns about the severe form of pneumonia.<\/p>\n

Legionnaires\u2019 expert Janet Stout said it\u2019s true that climate change is helping to make the disease more prevalent in this part of the country \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t mean New Yorkers should be resigned to expecting annual summer outbreaks as the new norm.<\/p>\n

Legionella bacteria, which causes Legionnaires\u2019 disease, grows in warm water, including the water that sits in New York City\u2019s rooftop cooling towers and plumbing systems. Stout said research shows that, since the early 2000s, increased rainfall, higher temperatures and high humidity have all increased the odds for Legionnaires’ disease in the Northeast.<\/p>\n

But Stout said outbreaks like the one on the Upper East Side that are linked to cooling towers are preventable with proper maintenance and oversight<\/a>, and she suggested the city may just need to better enforce its existing regulations.<\/p>\n

Chantal Gomez, a spokesperson for the city health department, said the agency has been able to \u201cstay nimble\u201d enough to respond to Legionnaires’ disease, extreme heat and other overlapping public health crises this summer, in part, because of the emergency protocols<\/a> that were put in place ahead of the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Gomez added that much of the agency\u2019s work to protect New Yorkers from climate-related threats has already become routine \u2014 such as spraying mosquitoes<\/a> with pesticides to prevent West Nile Virus.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur\u202fbread-and-butter\u202fwork is to protect the health of New Yorkers, and with\u202fa\u202fwarming climate,\u202fwe know that many of the threats we face could become more common,\u201d Gomez said.\u202f<\/p>\n

But just because climate change has wide-reaching public health effects doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s to blame for every plague that pops up, experts caution.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s currently no evidence that the cyclosporiasis outbreaks<\/a> that are sending people in New York and other parts of the country to the bathroom with explosive diarrhea this summer are climate change-related, said Jha.<\/p>\n

Yet food safety experts say some of the effects of climate change, such as more frequent extreme weather events, could contribute to foodborne illnesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we have a big flooding event, that can overwhelm the sewage infrastructure and the water and spread it into areas where it isn’t supposed to be,\u201d including crops that could get contaminated, said Erika Austhof, an assistant research professor at the University of Arizona who studies foodborne diseases and climate change.<\/p>\n

Austhof lamented recent cuts<\/a> to the tracking of foodborne illnesses through the federal FoodNet system, part of broader cuts to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings like FoodNet in the U.S. and all of the great work that the CDC does with different pathogens are really important so that we can track how these changes are happening in the population over time\u201d and determine whether there are links to extreme weather events, Austhof said.<\/p>\n

What will future summers look like?<\/p>\n

Yeung said the Mamdani administration is tasked with devising ways to protect people from the immediate threats posed by climate change \u2014 such as opening more cooling centers amid potentially deadly heatwaves \u2014 while also implementing infrastructure and policy changes to address the root causes of climate change and make the city more resilient.<\/p>\n

At the moment, part of the city\u2019s long-term work includes ensuring that buildings are coming into compliance with new regulations around reducing greenhouse gas emissions<\/a> and putting forth a plan to increase tree cover<\/a> in the coming decades, Yeung said.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani also recently announced<\/a> an infusion of funding into the Bureau of Coastal Resilience, which is charged with building floodgates in Lower Manhattan to protect residents from storms.<\/p>\n

Organizing at the hyperlocal level can also help make New Yorkers feel more empowered when faced with the compounding effects of climate change, said Valentina Rojas, the environmental health manager at We Act for Environmental Justice, a community group that organizes around climate issues in Upper Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Rojas said, in addition to advocating for city and state policies \u2014 such as a recently passed law that will require<\/a> NYC landlords to provide air conditioning in certain units by 2030 \u2014 her group also works to collect better data on the hyper-local effects of climate change.<\/p>\n

That has recently included placing more air quality monitors around Upper Manhattan and installing indoor temperature monitors in Harlem residents\u2019 homes through a project called Inside Heat.<\/p>\n

Rojas said she\u2019s heard from participants in that project that the effects of climate change are making their summers less joyous.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the participants that I talked to for the Inside Heat project were older and lived alone,\u201d Rojas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey lament that they’re really lonely during the summer because it’s hard for them to get outside,\u201d she added. \u201cTo protect their own health, they have to stay inside, just turn on the AC, turn off all their lights so that they can pay for their AC bill, and they can’t really move about. And so it’s just a really isolating time now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last summer, that feeling of fear and isolation was compounded by a deadly Legionnaires\u2019 outbreak in Harlem<\/a> that ultimately killed seven people.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were terrified to walk the streets,\u201d Rojas said.<\/p>\n

So is the future of NYC summer sitting alone in your apartment?<\/p>\n

\u201dMy answer is no,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cTalk to your neighbors. And at least if you stay in your house, maybe knock on someone else’s door and make sure they’re all right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Extreme heat and wildfire smoke, flash flood warnings and the second deadly Legionnaires\u2019 outbreak in two years \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-306388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}