The places climate change is making too hot for humans
By Daniel Vecellio / Los Angeles Times
Heat waves have always been part of summer, but the familiar short periods of oppressive conditions have grown into weeks to months of sweltering heat. Research has shown that heat waves have become longer, hotter and more frequent over the last half a century because of human-induced climate change.
The 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome, the Central Plains summer from hell the following year and this years Southwest sizzler are the most familiar recent examples in this country. But extreme heat has touched every continent over the last few years: Temperatures have regularly exceeded 122 degrees (50 Celsius) across the Asian subcontinent, and Londons thermometers reached 104 (40 C) for the first time last year, much earlier than climate models predicted.
But will such extended periods of heat and humidity come to regularly test the limits of human tolerance in places where much of the worlds population lives? It could happen sooner than we think.
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If global warming, currently at 1.2 degrees C (2.2 F) above the preindustrial baseline, is kept to 1.5 C (2.7 F), the extent and duration of temperatures exceeding the threshold can be limited. At 3 C (5.4 F) of warming, however, the duration of exposure in the worlds hot spots begins to increase exponentially, and physiologically intolerable conditions also begin to appear in the Americas.
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intrepidity
(7,351 posts)On the other hand, at the same 2 degrees of warming, the city of Hudaydah, Yemen, with a population of about 700,000, will experience an average of 340 hours a year of physiologically intolerable heat and humidity, putting the entire population at increased risk of dying. Divided into six-hour increments, thats equivalent to 56 days a year of these extreme conditions.
Other populous global hot spots at 2 degrees of warming would include Aden, Yemen, with about 34 days a year of such conditions; Dammam and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with 37 and eight days, respectively; Bandar Abbas and Ahvaz, Iran, with 29 and three; Lahore, Pakistan, with 24; Dubai, with 20; and Delhi and Kolkata, India, with six and five.