This story is part Of The Grist Series Coming to our Senses. A weeklong investigation of how climate change is reshaping our perceptions of the world.

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, I discovered that the people of the Pacific Northwest love to talk about summers to explain why they live here. “Wait until July,” they told me, smirking, as I shivered beneath a spitting late-May sky the exact same color as the sidewalk. This is what happens in July. The clouds above Washington disappear, and a bright sun appears on the scene, with the carefree abandon that the Bat Mitzvah girl just took off her braces. 

It is beautiful. It is not true summer. At least, not for those of us who grew east of the Mississippi. 

Summer is when you can walk outside your home and feel instantly radiant. It has a dewpoint at 70 degrees, hot grass, and humidity so thick that it almost quenches the thirst. It is the enemy of leather upholstery, sleeves, bangs, or leather upholstery. Summer reminds us, for better and for worse, that we are all part of a human body.

I craved that sticky feeling more and more the longer I was without it. Eventually, after seven summers in Seattle, deprived of true heat and humidity, I started to wonder if humans — like animals — require the conditions of their native habitats to thrive. Maybe I was biologically compelled to return to western Pennsylvania. Although this was not my only reason for moving home, I found it enjoyable. I was instantly moistened from the heat of asphalt as I stepped out at the airport in August.

Woods on Dunkard Creek is in southwestern Pennsylvania. Eve Andrews/Grist But I was in hell within a week. My moments of domestic bliss while tending to my garden turned into small nightmares when I saw a few gray mosquitoes eating my calves. A night spent drinking under a pink sunset in a friend’s backyard would be followed up not with a hangover but with colonies of welts up and down my thighs and shoulders. Remember that it is not a good idea to wear a lot of clothes in hot and humid conditions.

I used to lie awake at night, scratching my skin until my sheets were covered with my own blood. This was my dream of becoming a mad scientist who dedicates her entire life to eliminating every mosquito on Earth. I started to take at least one spray of insect repellent with me everywhere I went. I would soak myself in it so much that I left behind a cloud of citronella and DEET.

Even though I lived in Puget Sound for many years, I never forgot that mosquitoes are extremely fond of my body. Even so, this summer exsanguination was shocking to me. I do not remember it being this bad, I repeated to myself, worrying that so much time away from home had made me remember Pittsburgh’s sweltering months in too flattering a light. 

In terms of climate, it turns out that both mosquitoes as well as I love the same thing: mugginess. For mosquitoes to develop and lay eggs, they require a warm, humid environment. Appalachia is already plagued by spring flooding. This happens because of heavy rains, steep mountainsides, and rivers that run through lowlands. As the spring months become warmer, standing water is a prime breeding ground for mosquitoes.

“A bunch of things will influence mosquito populations, including human development patterns,” says Kaitlyn Trudeau, a data analyst with the nonprofit research organization Climate Central. “But the two things that are thought to be most influential are temperature and precipitation. Climate change will lead to higher temperatures and more frequent downpours. These conditions are prime examples of things that will increase mosquito populations.”

A Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness environmental health specialist and entomologist tests mosquitoes in swampland areas near the Ohio River to determine if they are carrying vector-borne diseases. Jon Cherry/Getty Images

A mosquito trap at Louisville, Kentucky. Jon Cherry/Getty Images

In 2020, Climate Central published an analysis projecting which regions of the United States would see the greatest increase in “mosquito days.” These are defined as days when the temperature falls between 50 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity is above 42 percent. The Ohio Valley, which is an area of Appalachia running from Pittsburgh to its intersection with the Mississippi River at Kentucky’s western tip, was included in the list.

A 2017 Army Corps of Engineers report on projected climate conditions warned that Pittsburgh’s annual mean temperature is predicted to increase from 50 degrees F at the turn of the century to 59 degrees by 2100. The average annual streamflow, the amount of water running through Appalachia’s many tributaries, could increase by 15 percent by 2040. 

That is, I had voluntarily returned to prime mosquito land.

A mosquito’s worst offense, it must be said, is not violating a person’s enjoyment of a summer evening. It is most famous as a vector to disease: Zika, West Nile virus, malaria and dengue fever. 2018 was Pennsylvania’s wettest year in history, with one and a half times the normal amount of precipitation inundating the state. Matt Helwig, a biologist with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s West Nile program, recounts that 120 Pennsylvanians contracted West Nile that year. Around three quarters of these patients were affected by neuroencephalitis, which is serious brain swelling due to the virus.

Increased temperatures are also pushing different mosquito species northward. This has consequences for both the spread of diseases and welt-ridden skin. Pennsylvania’s Asian Tiger Mosquito, also known as the Aedes albopictus is relatively new. It was first identified in Pennsylvania in the late 1990s. It’s a particularly dangerous vector because it bites as much as nine times more than other mosquitoes. To make matters worse, mosquitoes actually bite more in hotter weather — they’re at their most voracious around 93 degrees, according to one study.

The Aedes Albatus, also known by the Asian Tiger Mosquito or Woodland Moth. Amelia Bates / Grist “The reason mosquitoes are biting you is to take a blood meal so they can lay eggs, and most will feed on you until their gut is full with blood and then they’ll fly away,” explains Helwig. “But the Asian tiger has to feed on multiple people or bite multiple times on the same person to get the same blood meal.” 

“Blood meal” is a horrific enough concept to have to contemplate while melting into a towel poolside. But it’s more challenging to consider my own role — or at least, that of my species — in bringing the A. albopictus into my home.

A. albopictus is also known by several other names, including the Asian Tiger Mosquito and the (less controversial) Forest Mosquito. The latter comes from the fact it is a woodland-dwelling insect that has traditionally made its home in organic shelters like “tree holes, bamboo stumps, coconut husks,” according to one primer from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Like most mosquito species, it has learned to adapt to the less attractive features of the human-made environment. This includes wheelbarrows, old tires and trash cans. 

A. albopictus is native to East Asia, but as the planet’s most invasive species of mosquito, it can now be found all over the world. The first American colony of A. albopictus was discovered in Houston in 1985. The international used tire trade is believed to have helped the species spread around the world. An old tire is a perfect vessel in which a mosquito colony can travel — a sort of RV for arthropods. The larvae can stow away in the tire’s grooves and wells as the colony makes its ways overseas, and then when the tire arrives at its resting place — usually in a pile outdoors at an auto shop or waste facility — the first rain transforms it into a thriving mosquito habitat. 

This is what my fellow humans did. The mosquitoes are simply adapting to our new world. They made their home in our trash, and found opportunities in the most neglected and fetid parts of our domain. They might be called true capitalists if it was not for the desire to make money. 

This realization is not enough to make me feel at peace with the mosquitoes. Even though I panic whenever I feel a tiny buzz in my ears, I try to squash every gray speck that flies by. However, there are some things to be said about any exercise which forces us to learn more about the world we have created. 

A. albopictus has been part of my habitat. While I can try to protect myself against it as best I can I cannot deny its existence here in Ohio Valley. Who wouldn’t want to live here, after all — where you can feel summer right on your skin, all its sumptuousness and stupor and silky moisture. It is, at least for me, worth it.

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