New York: Heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius is likely to halve the impact of deadly heat waves, but heat waves will become commonplace in South Asia, including major crop-producing regions in India – such as West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, according to a new report. study.
The findings, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, indicated that these deadly heat waves are likely to become more common in the coming decades, even if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“Even 1.5 degrees will have serious consequences for South Asia in terms of heat stress,” said researcher Moetasim Ashfaq of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States.
“The future looks bleak for South Asia, but the worst can be avoided by keeping warming to as low as possible,” Ashfaq added.
The results differ from a similar study done in 2017, which predicted that heat waves of deadly temperatures would occur in South Asia by the end of the 21st century.
The researchers suspect the earlier study was too conservative, as deadly heat waves have hit the region in the past.
In 2015, large parts of India and Pakistan experienced the fifth deadliest heat wave in recorded history, causing approximately 3,500 heat-related deaths.
In the new study, the researchers used climate simulations and forecasts of future population growth to estimate the number of people who will experience dangerous levels of heat stress in South Asia at a warming level of 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.
They estimated that the temperature of the wet light bulb residents will experience, which is similar to the heat index, because it takes into account humidity as well as temperature.
A wet bulb temperature of 32 degrees Celsius (89.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is considered the point when labor becomes unsafe, and 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) is the limit for human survivability – when the body can no longer cool itself. .
Their analysis suggests that the population to exposure to unsafe labor temperatures by two degrees will increase more than twice and exposure to lethal temperatures to increase by 2.7 times, compared to recent years.
“The future looks bleak for South Asia, but the worst can be avoided by keeping warming as low as possible,” Ashfaq added.
Source: Telangana Today