Extreme heat can have serious health consequences, but until recently, public health researchers only had imprecise tools to study it. Brown University Professor Allan Just is working to change that.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

For years public health researchers have studied the link between extreme temperatures, and people’s health, in order to understand how a warming planet will impact people. Traditionally they’ve done this by taking temperature data, and comparing it to records about people’s health.

But there’s a bit of a problem. Those temperature readings come from only a handful of specialized weather stations, many of them at airports.  Researchers can take that data, and use it for research.

Allan Just: And they might look at the relationship between temperature and health in Rhode Island, but under the assumption that all of us live at TF Green Airport and very few people live at TF Green Airport.

Megan Hall: This is Allan Just, he’s an environmental epidemiologist, meaning he studies how the environment, mostly temperature and air pollution affect people’s health.

He works at Brown University, where he’s been developing a more accurate way for researchers to measure a place’s temperature, not just a whole city, but down to the buildings

Allan Just: Individual neighborhoods can be warmer or cooler, and that varies. It depends on how many trees there are and how much pavement there is, and whether you’re near a body of water, whether there’s a major roadway that goes through.

Megan Hall:  Using satellite data and some complicated math, Alan and his team have developed a model that can create much more accurate estimates of a place’s temperature, that lets their research get really specific.

Allan Just:  We’re doing lots of studies in which we’re using the location of an individual’s specific address or the school that their children. Attend, or we’re considering the location of every nursing home in the Northeast.

Megan Hall:  By pinpointing the temperature not just for a region, but for individual neighborhoods or buildings, they’re able to find new connections between extreme heat and health impacts.

Allan Just: We think that when we get more specific, we’ve been underestimating the burden.

Megan Hall:  From what researchers already know about extreme heat, the health impacts can be pretty serious.

Allan Just: And it’s sometimes easy to forget that, particularly for people who are very vulnerable to it, that warm weather can come with really severe health consequences,

Megan Hall:  There are the extreme cases that you hear about in the news, like people dying from heat stress. But then there are also much harder to pinpoint things, like an increased likelihood of heart attacks and strokes after heat waves.

And then there’s the way that extreme heat can interact with your medications. Different medications can sometimes impact your body’s ability to handle hotter temperatures.

Allan Just: But there are quite a few medications that, through different mechanisms, they can alter our ability to feel thirst. They can change the ways in which we retain body fluids. They can impair our ability to sweat. I mean, there are just several really important mechanisms at play when we think about the ways in which people end up vulnerable to extreme heat.

Megan Hall:  This work is especially relevant for studying the ways that the impact of climate change isn’t being felt evenly across our cities.

Allan Just: Underserved communities, they are systematically hotter, and that’s driven by land use decisions and structural racism that’s led to differences in where we’ve kept, uh, vegetation and where we’ve put pavement and roadways and those subtle differences are lost when we assume that everyone is living at the airport.

Megan Hall:That’s it for today. This episode was a collaboration with  Humans in Public Health,  a monthly podcast from the Brown University School of Public Health in celebration of Brown’s Climate Week.

You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, Ocean State Media and WBRU.

The post How do researchers know that heat waves affect our health? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

The post How do researchers know that heat waves affect our health? appeared first on Possibly.

You’ve probably seen pictures of tree-lined rooftops on skyscrapers and new buildings. But are these green roofs just for show? Or do they have real benefits? This week on Possibly we take a look.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Can you imagine going up to the top of your apartment building and enjoying a walk through some trees or doing yoga among some plants? These green roofs are popping up across many American cities. But, what are they exactly? And do they offer more than just some nice greenery?

We had Hamid Torabzadeh and Andrea Li from our Possibly Team look into this question.

Hamid Torabzadeh: Hi, Megan!

Andrea Li: Hello!

Megan Hall: So, what exactly is a green roof?

Hamid Torabzadeh: Basically, wherever we can grow plants such as vegetables, herbs, flowers, and fruits on top of a roof, that’s a green roof.

Andrea Li: There are many different types of green roofs – for example, you could build a vegetable garden or a small park.

Megan Hall: Sounds cool! And how are they actually built?

Hamid Torabzadeh: It can get complicated pretty quickly. But here’s the basic gist: a green roof needs a waterproof membrane, soil, and vegetation.

Megan Hall: A membrane?

Andrea Li: Yeah, the waterproof membrane is basically a layer of material under all the dirt that protects the actual roof from getting wet.

Hamid Torabzadeh: Above it, there’s soil, to help the plants grow and retain just the right amount of moisture.

Andrea Li: And then above this, of course, are all the plants!

Hamid Torabzadeh: To learn more, we went straight to the source and spoke to Mark Winterer, co-founder and owner of Recover Green Roofs.

Andrea Li: Recover is a company focused on the design, installation, and maintenance of green roofs.

Hamid Torabzadeh: Mark says there’s a range of options for green roofs, depending on how much weight your roof can hold.

Mark Winterer: Extensive is the lightweight, shallow system. Intensive is the heavier system that can support trees. And then semi-intensive, I call it the goldilocks. It’s not too heavy, it’s not too light, it’s the sweet spot.

Megan Hall: Got it. And why would we want these green roofs in the first place?

Hamid Torabzadeh: Good question. There are a lot of reasons. These roofs are part of a bigger strategy to make cities more green and livable.

Andrea Li: For one, they can make our cities cooler.

Hamid Torabzadeh: Research shows that green roofs can reduce air temperatures on the roof by up to 20°F.

Andrea Li: They can also potentially save costs by being more energy efficient.

Hamid Torabzadeh: This is because plants can act as natural insulators, reducing the need for AC in the summer and heating in the winter.

Megan Hall: So this could cut down on heating and cooling costs?

Andrea Li:  Yes, but the amount of savings can vary depending on the type of roof.

Hamid Torabzadeh: One study found that a building with a green roof with smaller plants and no trees uses approximately 2 to 17% less energy than the typical roof during summer time.

Andrea Li: But, the building with the green roof was colder in the winter and cost more because the typical roof had better insulation materials.

Megan Hall: Got it. So it can get a little complicated.

Andrea Li: It absolutely can.

Megan Hall: But it seems like there are some serious benefits to these roofs, especially in the summer. Why don’t I see more of them?

Hamid Torabzadeh: The main challenge is the cost of installing a roof- they can be pretty expensive.

Andrea Li: And while these roofs offer benefits, they aren’t necessarily financial.

Hamid Torabzadeh: For example, Boston Medical Center has two rooftop farms installed by Recover on their hospital roofs.

Andrea Li: In 2024, the farms produced almost 10,000 pounds of produce, which they use to feed patients.

Hamid Torabzadeh: But, Mark says, the food Boston Medical Center grows isn’t saving them any money.

Mark Winterer: Profit wasn’t the driver on that one, there is data points on how much yield the rooftop farms are generating. It’s basically equivalent to the cost of what it would cost to to buy the that produce in the first place.

Andrea Li: In other words, green roofs can accomplish plenty of goals- cooling buildings, growing vegetables, and increasing green space. But, saving money usually isn’t one of them.

Megan Hall: Got it! Thanks, Hamid and Andrea!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and Ocean State Media.

The post What’s the deal with green roofs? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

The post What’s the deal with green roofs? appeared first on Possibly.