As the climate warms, conditions once experienced only in saunas are rapidly becoming reality for hundreds of millions of people
From South Asia to the US, from Africa to Europe, intense heat is pushing the human body beyond the bounds of physiological tolerance.
Scenarios where wet-bulb heatwaves could cause mass deaths were a subject for careful, peer-reviewed long-range climate forecasts, or for science fiction (the 2020 novel The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson, begins with such a disaster killing about 20 million in India in a week).
https://www.bokus.com/bok/9780356508856/ministry-for-the-future/
Far from being a possible outcome of a future climate-wracked world, humid heat above 35C was already happening — from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to Pakistan, India, Australia, Venezuela, and each coast of Mexico.
Temperatures above Haldane’s 31C threshold were turning up in dozens of places across tropical South and Southeast Asia, China, West Africa, southern Europe and the Americas, extending to the suburbs of New York and Naples, Italy.
Air conditioners reduce indoor temperatures for those who can afford it, but dump hot air into the surrounding streets. Powering them requires fast-growing volumes of electricity, which in India is provided mainly by fossil fuels.
David Fickling and Ruth Pollard Bloomberg 7 juli 2022
London and much of the south of England is set to see temperatures that meet the threshold for a heat wave this weekend.
Temperatures will increase into early next week, with the capital set to get as warm as 32 degrees Celsius. Such temperatures are well above average for this time of year.
In Spain, temperatures could hit 45 degrees Celsius potentially toppling local records in parts of the country as well as in France and Portugal.
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