Extreme heat on Independence Day will be America's new normal, experts say
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However, experts said heat-related deaths are hard to pinpoint. Heat-related deaths are undercounted and often heat exacerbates an underlying medical condition.

"Teasing out which of the deaths are due to extreme heat and which are due to other causes is not an exact science ," said Steven Cohen, who is the director of the sustainability management program at Columbia University and a former policy analyst for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. There's no universal standard for determining the cause of death when it's associated with a climate-related disaster.

The heat also led to an increase in people seeking help from emergency responders.

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