Future Extreme Event Risk in the Rural Northeastern United States

Future climate change impacts on humans will be determined by the convergence of evolving physical climate and socioeconomic systems. Rural areas of the northeastern United States have experienced increased temperature and precipitation extremes, especially over the past three decades, and face unique challenges due to their physical isolation, natural-resource–dependent economies, and high poverty rates. To explore the impacts of future extreme events on vulnerable, rural populations in the Northeast, we analyzed future (2046–2075) annual maximum daily maximum temperature, annual minimum daily minimum temperature, annual maximum daily precipitation, and annual minimum two-week summer precipitation for two greenhouse gas emissions scenarios using four global climate models and gridded temperature and precipitation observations. We then combined those projections with estimates of county-level population and relative income for 2060 to calculate changes in extreme person-events compared to a historical per...