Spokane Beat the Heat

Explore research findings on extreme heat and what our community can do to be more prepared for future heat waves.

Beat the Heat is an initiative from the Gonzaga Institute for Climate, Water and the Environment

Thank you for your interest in the research being conducted on extreme heat by the Gonzaga Institute for Climate, Water, and the Environment.

To progress through this site, scroll downwards or click the section headings that will be docked at the top of your screen.
There are a number of interactive maps embedded on the site. Pointers on navigating these maps in their adjacent text should help you make sense of the data you're seeing.
- You can click on any image used in the map to view it in full screen view and get a better look.

Scroll down to begin learning!

2021 Northwest Heat Dome

In Summer 2021, historic temperature records were shattered throughout the Pacific Northwest in an extreme weather event known as a Heat Dome. The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) officially reported 119 heat-related deaths from June 26 to July 2,¹ making it the deadliest weather event in Washington history to date.² The 119 who lost their life in that seven-day stretch contributed to a total of 157 Washingtonian deaths from heat-related illness across the whole summer.³

A study on excess mortality published by Washington DOH showed 700 more deaths than expected occurred between June 20 and July 2,⁴ shown in the graphic below.

Source: *New York Times* report on deaths during the 2021 Heat Dome, August 11, 2021.⁵

In Spokane, the Heat Dome tragically took its toll as well. The Spokane County Medical Examiner reported 19 heat-related deaths during the extreme heat event.⁶ Of the heat dome's victims in Spokane County, three were unhoused, while others were found at or near their homes. The 2021 Heat Dome made it apparent that extreme heat events are a serious public health threat.

The image below has red pins representing some of Spokane County's confirmed heat-related deaths during the 2021 Heat Dome.

Red pins on the map depict 15 of Spokane County's 19 confirmed heat-related deaths during the 2021 Heat Dome, others occurred within the county but outside of image extent or lacked a location in the release from the Medical Examiner.

Urban Heat Islands

The 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Dome demonstrated the severity and consequences of extreme heat events. In urban spaces, heat is not distributed evenly; The urban heat island (UHI) effect occurs when a city’s infrastructure elevates extreme temperatures in some places, while lowering ambient temperatures elsewhere.⁷

Extreme heat is worsened by heat-retaining surfaces like asphalt and dark rooftops, tight urban geometry that limits air circulation, and excess heat generated from human sources.⁹ Elevated temperatures increase energy use, emissions, and compromise human health.⁹

In Summer 2022, the Gonzaga Climate Institute set out to learn more about urban heat islands in Spokane. Through partnership with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and CAPA Strategies, community volunteers from around Spokane took to the streets on an 87-degree July day¹⁰ to collect air temperature data and facilitate the citywide mapping of urban heat islands.

Spokane's Urban Heat

With over 40,000 data points collected, Spokane's urban heat island maps were created. Morning temperatures varied by over 13-degrees, afternoon temperatures varies by upwards of 8-degrees, and evening temperatures spanned a 9-degree temperature range. To the right is a still image of projected citywide temperatures in the afternoon on July 16, 2022.¹¹

The black lines on the image below represent the routes driven by community volunteers with atmospheric data sensors attached to their cars.

The routes were constructed to pass near community-generated places of interest in the City of Spokane. These were places that the community felt may be significant when considering how heat is spread throughout urban settings, and who it impacts. The places of interest included schools, parks, streets with dense canopy cover, and large plots of dark or absorptive materials.

With the measurements taken by their sensors across the City, our partners, CAPA Strategies analyzed how the built environment and temperatures interacted to infer temperatures across the entire City.

Explore Spokane's Urban Heat Islands

Using the map to the right, you can interact with the urban heat island maps that were created this summer. Scroll with your mouse to zoom in and out, or use the '+' and '-' buttons in the top left corner. You can use the home icon in the top right to re-center the map.

In the map's bottom left corner, you can use 'open layer list' to select which layer you view. To view or stop viewing a layer, simply click on the eye icon next to the layer name. The legend icon, located next to the layer list, will show you the range of temperature values on the active layer.

The layers titled "traverse" show the routes driven by volunteers and data collected on the day of the project. The options with "tile layer" show a static layer that show the predicted citywide temperatures based on the traverse data points.

In the bottom right, you click on the small image of a different map style to toggle between backdrops.

We encourage you to look around the City! Find your house, your place of work, public spaces you visit, schools in your area, and any other places of interest.

One valuable way to contextualize urban heat islands is to activate the satellite imagery basemap in the bottom right and turn on a heat map layer of your choice. Then, look for temperature extremes, indicated by deep red or blue, and turn the selected map layer off to see what sort of infrastructure/development is below.

Addressing Urban Heat Islands

Having learned where heat is most severe in Spokane, it is important to think about how to best address pockets of elevated heat and, in turn, risk.

You may have heard before that wearing lighter colored clothing keeps you cooler in the summer than wearing dark colors. Because lighter colored surfaces absorb less heat, the same principle can be applied to infrastructure. White pavement keeps streets about 30 degrees cooler than regular asphalt.¹² Cool roofs are designed with the same idea, and absorbing less heat from the sun also increases the energy efficiency of buildings.

Canopy cover, ground-level vegetation, and green roofs lower air temperatures by providing shade and evaporative cooling, as plants naturally releasing water through their leaves into the atmosphere.¹³

However, implementing solutions is not as easy as describing them. Urban heat disparities do not occur in a vacuum, and as with many consequences of our changing climate, it can be the communities with the least that are impacted most.

Heat is not Distributed Equally

As the image below shows, there are certain demographics that to face increased health risk during heat events.

The Gonzaga Climate Center wanted to examine how temperatures intersect with other urban inequalities.

In the fall of 2022 and spring of 2023, the Gonzaga Climate Center partnered with DOH, which helped create additional map layers related to Spokane’s social, demographic, and economic makeup. Using these additional map layers, DOH was then able to perform a correlation analysis to reveal statistical correlations between these urban heat islands and these factors. The 5 new map layers were all measured at the census tract level and are listed below:

paved surfaces as a % of total land cover
senior residents as a % of total population
% of total residents identifying as each census-recognized race
% of population living at or below the poverty line
% of residents who qualified as having limited English proficiency.

Correlation Analysis Results

The correlation analysis returned many practically and statistically significant relationships. Below are the findings that the Gonzaga Climate Institute and Washington DOH identified as most important:

_{(for all those who may be rusty, a refresher on interpreting correlation statistics is embedded further down for reference)}

There exists a significant and very strong positive correlation between urban heat and paved surfaces (r=0.8, p<0.0001)
There exists a significant and strong positive correlation between urban heat and the % of population living under the poverty line (r=0.7, p<0.0001)
There exists a significant and moderately strong positive correlation between urban heat and the % of the population that is non-white (r=0.55, p<0.0001)
% of population that identifies as Indigenous were found to have the strongest relationship with urban heat among non-white subcategories (r=0.6 , p<0.0001)

The image to the left shows two of the layers used in the correlation analysis. You can continue scrolling to explore all of these layers on an interactive map.

Urban Heat Inequality

To the left now is a map with the urban heat island layers and the additional layers from the Washington DOH. You can navigate this map exactly like the map embedded earlier. This time, be sure to utilize the new layers that have been discussed, and visualize the significant relationships between the heat layers and the census data.

For an in-depth look at the correlation analysis, you can view the full report here: Spokane Beat the Heat: Correlations of Urban Heat with Race and Income in Spokane, Washington

_Note: _{One layer is included on the map that hasn't been mentioned. Home Owner's Loan Corporation Grades shows boundaries drawn in the 1930's which assigned grades to each neighborhood, on a scale of A ("Best") - D ("Hazardous").} _{These boundaries are commonly referred to as "redlining." The lasting effects of these discrimination-motivated classifications are still present in our cities neighborhoods today.}

Community Engagement

Following the heat mapping effort, the Gonzaga Climate Institute distributed a survey on perceptions and experiences of extreme heat in Spokane, WA to understand how people qualified their personal, household, & community's risk, and gauge feelings on currently and prospectively available resources for combating extreme heat risk. The survey generated nearly 1800 responses from around the Spokane area.

The Gonzaga Climate Institute is using the valuable responses from the Spokane community to identify apparent gaps in extreme heat readiness and cooling resources.

Key findings from the survey include:

84.4% of respondents indicated they felt extreme heat was a "moderate" or "severe" threat
to the "health and wellbeing of the Spokane Community"
53% of respondents indicated they felt extreme heat was a "moderate" or "severe" threat to their "personal health and wellbeing"
23.3% of respondents indicated they had no access to any type of air conditioning unit
- 21.5% of respondents with A/C unit indicated a barrier to use, such as utility costs.
- 88% of respondents indicated they stay home during extreme heat, this figure far exceeding the percentage of homes with unimpeded access to an A/C unit

Use the arrows on the side of your screen below to navigate a series of responses to key questions posed by the Gonzaga Climate Institute's survey.

Extreme Heat Readiness

The Gonzaga Center for Climate, Society, and the Environment urges all community members to learn about prepare for extreme heat to the best of their ability. A partnership with Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) has formed to build awareness of extreme heat risks in the Spokane area as summertime highs continue to climb.

Additionally, the Gonzaga Climate Center team established a partnership with the City of Spokane to unite extreme heat resilience efforts around the City, and prevent heat-related deaths and illness in their community.

Stay Up to Date

To check in on the progress of Spokane Beat the Heat, learn more about the project, or explore the Gonzaga Climate Center's other work in the Spokane community, visit www.gonzaga.edu/Climate-Institute

Also check out the Gonzaga Climate Institute's YouTube , where you can watch a virtual lecture with even more information about Spokane Beat the Heat, and more