In New Hampshire, summertime is pretty synonymous with getting outside, but new research from the University of New Hampshire shows that as our summers get hotter due to climate change, people are modifying their summer outdoor routines, and it could have an effect on tourism.
Maddie Smith is a research scientist at the UNH Earth Systems Research Center and a research fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy. Smith spoke with NHPR’s Julia Barnett.
Below is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
How are our summers in New Hampshire changing due to climate change? I mean, right now it feels pretty darn hot out there.
Yeah, today especially is a pretty hot day. What we look at as a metric for that is the number of days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. And projections looking forward are that we're going to see a lot more of those.
What does your research find about how people are approaching summer tourism now as climate change affects our seasons?
This research is from the State Comprehensive Outdoor Rec Plan. It's part of the residential visitor survey. So, we're talking about people who live in New Hampshire, who call New Hampshire home.
Outdoor recreation is responsible for over 33,000 jobs and $1.8 billion in wages and compensation in the state of New Hampshire. It contributes $4.2 billion to value added. Outdoor recreation is a cornerstone of the New Hampshire way of life.
What we asked them about summer is if they're feeling impacted by hotter days, more frequent heat waves and longer summer seasons. And people were responding that they were impacted in all three of those areas.
When we took that and put it into a model and asked them how they're coping and if they're planning to come back, we saw that with summer, it was the one area that we looked at where people were reporting that they couldn't cope. They were giving us survey responses that said, “Summer's too hot. It's the one time where I stay home and I keep the air conditioning on.”
Unfortunately, with higher heat comes the increased risk of heat related illness. But how might this also affect other sectors and areas like water quality or ecosystems?
Cold water fishing is popular in New Hampshire and something that people love to do. And what we heard in our survey responses were people were experiencing more challenges with algae blooms on lakes and challenges with lower water levels.
And maybe the water is just not particularly cold anymore.
Yeah, yeah, that could be an issue. We had one respondent say they were happy about that. They were happy about the warmer water. But for the most part, I would be concerned about warmer waters and what that means for our fish and water quality.
What are things that businesses who rely on summer tourism or maybe our local or state governments could do to help people handle this hotter weather?
I think as we're thinking about infrastructure upgrades, when there is funding for them, thinking about increased shade structures and thinking about access to drinking water. Just a local park that I was at recently had these beautiful old water fountains, drinking water fountains and they're not active anymore, but could be, in theory, brought back. So just providing ways for people to cool down in the places that they love.
