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Will climate change make plague-filled NYC summers like this one the new norm?
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Jul 27, 2026
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By
Caroline Lewis
Published Jul 27, 2026
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Extreme heat and wildfire smoke, flash flood warnings and the second deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak in two years — not to mention a rise in tick-borne illnesses. If it feels like this New York summer has featured a biblical number of plagues, you're not alone.
Policy experts say climate change is exacerbating all of these public health threats in one way or another, and experiencing multiple, overlapping climate-related health hazards is likely to become more common.
And while climate change hasn’t been linked to the explosive diarrhea New Yorkers are getting from a food-borne parasite — another headline of the summer — there is evidence that the extreme weather events caused by climate change could contribute to more outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, food safety experts say.
The onslaught of climate-driven public health threats, both emerging and familiar, is likely to place more pressure on public health departments amid cuts to both climate and public health work at the federal level, the officials said.
“New Yorkers are not just experiencing one kind of weather at a time anymore,” said Louise Yeung, the city’s chief climate officer. “We are in a new kind of climate that is hotter and wetter, and we are seeing a lot more of these climate threats happening at the same time.”
Yeung emphasized that not everyone experiences the threat of climate change equally, noting that Black New Yorkers are at higher risk of dying from extreme heat, and that people with lower incomes may struggle to afford the utility costs associated with air conditioning.
New York City has been reclassified in recent years as a subtropical climate, with the winters getting milder and summers remaining hot and humid.
By the middle of this century, New York City is expected to experience between 14 and 32 days with temperatures over 95 degrees each year, up from about four historically, according to the New York State Climate Impacts Assessment. At the same time, flooding is expected to become more prevalent as a result of increased precipitation and sea level rise, the report finds.
But climate change also contributes to public health threats in less obvious ways, including by increasing the risk of certain “vector-borne” diseases transmitted to humans by organisms such as ticks, mosquitoes and bacteria, said Dr. Ashish Jha, a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfar Center for Science and International Affairs.
Dr. Alister Martin, the city health commissioner, has mentioned climate change multiple times this summer as one factor putting the city at higher risk of Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks and city officials increasingly talk about it as a recurring, seasonal issue.
Some city councilmembers are proposing that the health department operate a summer Legionnaires’ hotline to answer New Yorkers’ questions and concerns about the severe form of pneumonia.
Legionnaires’ expert Janet Stout said it’s true that climate change is helping to make the disease more prevalent in this part of the country — but that doesn’t mean New Yorkers should be resigned to expecting annual summer outbreaks as the new norm.
Legionella bacteria, which causes Legionnaires’ disease, grows in warm water, including the water that sits in New York City’s rooftop cooling towers and plumbing systems. Stout said research shows that, since the early 2000s, increased rainfall, higher temperatures and high humidity have all increased the odds for Legionnaires' disease in the Northeast.
But Stout said outbreaks like the one on the Upper East Side that are linked to cooling towers are preventable with proper maintenance and oversight, and she suggested the city may just need to better enforce its existing regulations.
Chantal Gomez, a spokesperson for the city health department, said the agency has been able to “stay nimble” enough to respond to Legionnaires' disease, extreme heat and other overlapping public health crises this summer, in part, because of the emergency protocols that were put in place ahead of the World Cup.
Gomez added that much of the agency’s work to protect New Yorkers from climate-related threats has already become routine — such as spraying mosquitoes with pesticides to prevent West Nile Virus.
“Our bread-and-butter work is to protect the health of New Yorkers, and with a warming climate, we know that many of the threats we face could become more common,” Gomez said.
But just because climate change has wide-reaching public health effects doesn’t mean it’s to blame for every plague that pops up, experts caution.
There’s currently no evidence that the cyclosporiasis outbreaks that are sending people in New York and other parts of the country to the bathroom with explosive diarrhea this summer are climate change-related, said Jha.
Yet food safety experts say some of the effects of climate change, such as more frequent extreme weather events, could contribute to foodborne illnesses.
“When we have a big flooding event, that can overwhelm the sewage infrastructure and the water and spread it into areas where it isn't supposed to be,” including crops that could get contaminated, said Erika Austhof, an assistant research professor at the University of Arizona who studies foodborne diseases and climate change.
Austhof lamented recent cuts to the tracking of foodborne illnesses through the federal FoodNet system, part of broader cuts to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Things like FoodNet in the U.S. and all of the great work that the CDC does with different pathogens are really important so that we can track how these changes are happening in the population over time” and determine whether there are links to extreme weather events, Austhof said.
What will future summers look like?
Yeung said the Mamdani administration is tasked with devising ways to protect people from the immediate threats posed by climate change — such as opening more cooling centers amid potentially deadly heatwaves — while also implementing infrastructure and policy changes to address the root causes of climate change and make the city more resilient.
At the moment, part of the city’s long-term work includes ensuring that buildings are coming into compliance with new regulations around reducing greenhouse gas emissions and putting forth a plan to increase tree cover in the coming decades, Yeung said.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani also recently announced an infusion of funding into the Bureau of Coastal Resilience, which is charged with building floodgates in Lower Manhattan to protect residents from storms.
Organizing at the hyperlocal level can also help make New Yorkers feel more empowered when faced with the compounding effects of climate change, said Valentina Rojas, the environmental health manager at We Act for Environmental Justice, a community group that organizes around climate issues in Upper Manhattan.
Rojas said, in addition to advocating for city and state policies — such as a recently passed law that will require NYC landlords to provide air conditioning in certain units by 2030 — her group also works to collect better data on the hyper-local effects of climate change.
That has recently included placing more air quality monitors around Upper Manhattan and installing indoor temperature monitors in Harlem residents’ homes through a project called Inside Heat.
Rojas said she’s heard from participants in that project that the effects of climate change are making their summers less joyous.
“A lot of the participants that I talked to for the Inside Heat project were older and lived alone,” Rojas said.
“They lament that they're really lonely during the summer because it's hard for them to get outside,” she added. “To protect their own health, they have to stay inside, just turn on the AC, turn off all their lights so that they can pay for their AC bill, and they can't really move about. And so it's just a really isolating time now.”
Last summer, that feeling of fear and isolation was compounded by a deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak in Harlem that ultimately killed seven people.
“People were terrified to walk the streets,” Rojas said.
So is the future of NYC summer sitting alone in your apartment?
”My answer is no,” Rojas said. “Talk to your neighbors. And at least if you stay in your house, maybe knock on someone else's door and make sure they're all right.”
Tagged
Health and Science
climate change
public health
Caroline Lewis
Caroline Lewis is on the health care beat for WNYC and Gothamist. She has covered COVID, a nurses' strike, the overdose crisis and New York’s marijuana legalization effort, and spent a year investigating patients' medical bills. She always wants to hear about how everyday New Yorkers experience the health system. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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