Scientists from Purdue University (US) have found that, in a few years, West Africa, South Asia and the Midwest in the US will become dangerous for human life due to climate change.
West Africa and parts of South Asia are among the most vulnerable, according to the research – regions which have very dense populations and often little access to air conditioning.
Richer countries will fare better but will not escape unscathed. Hotspots of extreme humid heat will emerge in parts of the US, including the Midwest, as global warming ticks up, the study found.
Today’s searing-hot summers will likely seem cool by future standards, and the heat we experience is changing in ways that are not in our favour.
Extreme, humid heat is persisting at nighttime, depriving the body of vital time to recuperate.
And we can expect more back-to-back heat waves, slamming regions with successive cycles of brutal heat, said Jane Baldwin, assistant professor of Earth system science at the University of California Irvine.
Heat already kills an estimated 489,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organisation, but the real toll could be higher because heat-related deaths are so hard to track.
Deaths may be attributed to heart attacks or strokes, with no reference to the fact they happened during a scorching heat wave.
“We’re absolutely undercounting in a serious way,” said Bharat Venkat, director of the UCLA Heat Lab.
Every week of summer brings more stories of people like the ultra-marathon runner Philip Kreycik, whose tragic, early deaths are entirely preventable.
Heat lacks the blunt force of a hurricane, the scorched earth of a wildfire or the sweeping devastation of a flood – all of which leave a visible and immediate trail of devastation, destroying homes, tearing up roads and flattening towns.
Instead, heat is a creeping threat, a steady hum in the background. Its worst damage is not to property but to our bodies, Venkat said. And it is an “invisible, silent killer.”
