In March and April this year, South Asia witnessed a heatwave that claimed more than 90 lives. According to a report, this heatwave was made 30 times more likely by climate change.
City Express News
New Delhi,May 24,2022:Before the onset of human-caused climate change, the chances of such an event occurring would have been roughly once every 3,000 years, scientist Friederike Otto was quoted as saying in an AFP report.
Otto and her colleagues at the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium found that global warming to date of 1.2 degrees Celsius has shortened the so-called return period for extreme heat of similar duration and intensity in South Asia to once-a-century. In other words, such a heatwave has become 30 times more likely.
As global warming continues unabated, the interval between such killer heatwaves will reduce further.
The aforementioned report claimed that such a heatwave could be expected as often as once every five years if Earth’s average surface temperature rises another four-fifths of a degree to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
As per current national commitments to curb carbon emissions under the Paris Agreement, the world will see global warming of 2.8 degrees Celsius. According to senior author of the report Friederike Otto, the next goal, then, is to “inform adaptation decision-making in the face of unprecedented future heat”.
In India and Pakistan, temperatures in March and April this year were higher than they have ever been recorded.
More than 90 deaths have been directly attributed to the heatwave, but this number is likely to go up. It will be months before the total toll and economic damage can be calculated, keeping in mind illness, lost wages, missed school days and reduced working hours.
As a result of the heat and 60-70 per cent less rain than usual, the wheat crop was affected and India blocked wheat exports. This led to a sharp rise in global prices of the essential commodity.
The poor and vulnerable suffered the most at the hands of the heatwave. According to Pakistani climate scientist and co-author of the report Fahad Saeed, global warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius will pose an existential threat to vulnerable populations without access to air conditioning or other ways to keep cool. (Agencies)
