Racial and ethnic minorities disproportionately exposed to extreme daily temperature variation in the United States

In the history of Homo sapiens, well-populated habitats have featured relatively stable temperatures with generally small daily variations. As the global population is increasingly residing in highly disparate climates, a burgeoning literature has documented the adverse health effects of single-day and day-to-day variation in temperature, raising questions of inequality in exposure to this environmental health risk. Yet, we continue to lack understanding of inequality in exposure to daily temperature variation (DTV) in the highly unequal United States. Using nighttime and daytime land surface temperature data between 2000 and 2017, this study analyzes population exposure to long-term DTV by race and ethnicity, income, and age for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The analysis is based on population-weighted exposure at the census-tract level. We find that, on average, non-White (especially Black and Hispanic) and low-income Americans are exposed disproportionately to larger DTV. Race-based inequalities in exposure to DTV are larger than income-based disparities, with inequalities heightened in the summer months. In May, for example, the DTV difference by race and ethnicity of 51 states is between 0.20 and 3.01 °C (up to 21.0%). We find that younger populations are, on average, exposed to larger DTV, though the difference is marginal.