The UK Met Office study put the odds of a heatwave exceeding the average temperature as just once in 312 years. Unfortunately, that’s the best-case scenario. When climate change is taken into account, those odds change dramatically to once every 3.1 years
Representational image. AFP
With many places in India including Delhi and Kashmir witnessing sweltering temperatures, citizens are hoping and praying for relief.
Unfortunately, it seems like heatwaves aren’t only here to stay, but are set to get even more frequent. At least that’s what a new study published by the UK Met Office, which states that climate change has made such record-breaking heatwaves 100 times more likely, suggests.
The Met Office study put the odds of a heatwave exceeding the average temperature as just once in 312 years. Unfortunately, that’s the best-case scenario. When climate change is taken into account, those odds change dramatically to once every 3.1 years
Also read: Why there’s a big temperature difference between Delhi and neighbouring areas
It gets even worse. If climate change projections bear out, the study shows that by the end of the century, the chances of a heatwave exceeding the average temperature spike to once every 1.15 years.
As per The Guardian, scientists examined record-breaking temperatures in north-west India and Pakistan in April and May 2010, which the current heatwave in the region is set to surpass.
April and May in 2010 was used as a point of comparison because those months had the highest average temperatures since 1900, CNN reported.
As per The Guardian, scientists used 14 computer models to assess two scenarios — with and without climate change — and discovered that the 2010 heatwave was 100 times more likely in our current scenario.
By the end of the century, these heatwaves will occur even if carbon emissions decline, the study showed.
Aditi Mukherji, a scientist at the International Water Management Institute, told Frontline governments in India, both at state-level and at the Centre, must immediately put together heat management plans.
Even more importantly, India and other developing nations should pressure high emitters to immediately cut down, she added.
Dr Nikos Christidis, who produced the Met Office attribution study, was quoted as saying: “Spells of heat have always been a feature of the region’s pre-monsoon climate during April and May. However, our study shows that climate change is driving the heat intensity of these spells making record-breaking temperatures 100 times more likely. By the end of the century increasing climate change is likely to drive temperatures of these values on average every year.”
Meanwhile, as per Financial Express, the extreme weather conditions have led to NASA being able to detect ‘heat islands’ from space.
On Sunday, NASA’s Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station instrument showed ‘heat islands’ near Delhi with the even the night temperature at 40 degree Celsius.
This comes on the same day that the United Nations published a report showing that critical climate indicators including greenhouse gas concentrations and rising sea levels all broke records last year.
The last seven years were also the hottest on record.
India extremely vulnerable
The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change has already said it is “very likely” that heat waves in the 21st Century will be “hotter, longer and more frequent”.
As per Forbes, the first part of the sixth IPCC report ‘Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis’ released in August 2021 says that in the Indian subcontinent, “Heat extremes have increased while cold extremes have decreased, and these trends will continue over the coming decades.”
As the world’s third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, India is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including more deadly heat waves and cyclones”, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a group of law students and attorneys at the forefront of the environmental movement since it was formed way in 1970 told Citizen Matters.
In May, Greenpeace India warned that Delhi and Mumbai’s mean annual temperature would be 5?C higher in the 2080-99 period as compared to the 1995-2014 period if global CO2 emissions double by 2050.
Greenpeace India based its heatwave projections based on Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change’s sixth assessment report.
Such a drastic and rapid increase in temperature will mean India will experience more unprecedented and prolonged heatwaves, extreme weathers, increased hospitalisations and irreparable damage to agriculture and wildlife risking food and nutritional security, Greenpeace India warned.
Heatwaves and health
ORF distinguished fellow Dr Ramnath Jha, in his issue brief on “Extreme Heat Events in India’s Cities: A Framework for Adaptive Action Plans” of January 2021, wrote: “Heat waves have several health impacts–dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke.”
Citizen Matters quoted Dr Jha as stating that heat waves killed 6,187 people across the country between 2011 and 2018. Dr Jha added data on heat wave deaths are not widely available as most cases go unreported and ambiguity of symptoms mean that mortality rates may not be accurately captured.
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