It’s Getting Hot in Here: Exploring Climate Change Impacts in Los Angeles

6 min readApr 10, 2023

Authors: Emma Chi (Project Lead), Anthony Chen, Shiyu Murashima, Isabel Tao, Madeline Zhang

Introduction:

It is no surprise that climate conditions have been declining in recent years, manifesting in phenomena like higher average temperatures, increasingly intense droughts, and water scarcity. Many of us are aware of these crises, but the reverberations of climate change on social and economic activities in L.A. may be lesser known. Focusing mainly on recent years, we collected a variety of data spanning across the 2000s through 2020, looking into several climate phenomena and exploring their impacts.

Body:

PM2.5 Concentration in LA from 2014 to 2017

*Figure 1: Comparison of PM2.5 Concentrations in LA from 2014 and 2017*

Figure 1: looks at PM2.5 concentration, fine particulate matter that is an air pollutant of which high levels are considered harmful. Common factors that contribute to rising PM2.5 levels are the burning of fuels, power plants, and wildfires. Focusing on the LA area, the bar chart compares the ten highest PM2.5 concentrations in LA neighborhoods in 2014 and in 2017. Most studies indicate that a concentration of 12 μg/m³ is considered safe; we can see in the chart that several of the concentrations recorded in 2014 are above this level, however the concentrations in 2017 appear to be around this level. In addition, we do not see significant fluctuation between the two years. Nevertheless, prolonged exposure to high concentration levels poses threats to health, causing health concerns such as lung and respiratory damage.

Air Quality in Los Angeles County Over Time (2016–2023)

*Figure 2: Cycle of Air Quality Index in LA from 2016 to 2023*

The air quality in California, especially in Los Angeles, has never been something to gasp about, and with the burning of more fossil fuels to meet the energy consumption demands of the growing population, the worsening air quality is a concern as it can lead to health problems. From Figure 2, it is immediately seen that there is a pattern to the conditions of air quality, with higher values in the y-axis corresponding to worsened air quality. The AQI is calculated based on the concentrations of pollutants in the air and how dangerous the pollutant is to human health. In the snippet of time shown above, there is a cycle to the spikes in worsening air quality, often becoming the worst in the warmer months of July — September and reaching the best quality in the winter around February.

Wildfires in Relation to Air Quality Index

*Figures 3 and 4: Tracking Number of Wildfires in CA*

Figures 3 and 4 above show the number of wildfires in California in the months of February and August respectively. Looking closely, the number of wildfires in February are greatly lower than those in August, denoted with the February y-axis reaching a maximum of 250 thousand and the same axis for August reaching 4.25 million. Although the causation is not certain, there happens to be a causation between the number of wildfires and the worse air quality index value.

California Drought effects on LA Neighborhoods

*Figure 5: Mapping CA Drought Severity from 2000 to 2023*

California has been in an ongoing drought for many years, and it has affected LA neighborhoods economically. The Drought Severity and Coverage Index (DSCI) is a method used to convert drought levels from the US Drought Monitor map to a single value for an area, in this case California. The possible values of DSCI range from 0 to 500, 0 meaning that none of the area is abnormally dry or in drought, and 500 meaning that all of the area is in D4 exceptional drought. The DSCI takes values from D0 to D4, D0 being no drought and D4 being exceptional drought, and scales accordingly:

1(D0) + 2(D1) + 3(D2) + 4(D3) + 5(D4) = DSCI

From this visualization, we can first see that the severity of droughts in California have gradually increased since 2000, most likely due to a gradual increase in global temperature caused by climate change. We can also see that there is fluctuation every 3 to 4 years where the drought severity will increase or decrease, which could potentially be explained by the El Nino Southern Oscillation, in which El Nino years (ex: 2015) are much drier. Nonetheless, droughts brought on by climate change make it significantly more difficult for farmers to produce food. With California producing lots of food domestically, the price of food naturally increases, and access to food can potentially become more limited especially to those living in low income neighborhoods in LA.

Impacts of Droughts on Health

*Figures 6 and 7: Impacts of Droughts and Extreme Heat Conditions on Health*

In Los Angeles County, we can see the firsthand effects of severe droughts and extreme heat. In these extreme conditions, individuals are likely to experience Heat Related Illnesses (HRI) at a more frequent level. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) defines HRI as including heat stroke, heat exhaustion, rhabdomyolysis (muscle rupture due to heat), heat rash, heat cramps, and heat syncope (heat related dizziness). Within these illnesses, individuals may suffer from dehydration, fever, and heat stress. The data extrapolated for these visualizations comes from UCLA Heat Maps, an initiative under the Center for Healthy Climate Solutions (C-Solutions) for the Fielding School of Public Health, and C-Solutions considers climate change as “an escalating public health emergency.” Researchers for this project specifically found the average number of daily excess emergency room (ER) visits during extreme heat periods for HRI, categorized based on zipcode. Using another data set with the average median income by zipcode, we can analyze the relative impacts of extreme heat based on income level. On a day to day scale, it is clear that lower income neighborhoods have far greater amount of HRI, not even including the non-hospitalizations.

Lower income communities are more vulnerable for a variety of reasons. American Geophysical Union declares that heat waves globally impact the lowest income quartile by over 40% compared to the highest income (Bhaskar et al., 2022). This is due to more extensive power outages, inaccess to adequate cooling systems, and a lack of available resources.

Solar Impact from Precipitation

*Figure 8: Relationship Between Rain and Solar Radiation*

Figure 8 shows the relationship between the amount of rain and solar radiation in California during the 2020 wildfires. We see most of the points grouped together near the origin, with various other points going along the y-axis and x-axis. These few points show a pattern in that when there is little rainfall, the solar radiation is high. When the rainfall increases, the solar radiation decreases. Since California has experienced minimal rainfall, the solar radiation levels are much higher than they should be, which is only amplified from the wildfires occurring, thus indicating a health issue from radiation sources.

Conclusion:

Exploring these trends and their impacts, it is clear that climate change has catastrophic effects on LA neighborhoods, posing threats to residents’ health, access to resources, and food production. These dangerous reverberations demonstrate that it is important that we are not just aware of climate change, but that we also understand how it impacts the area and communities that many of us call home.