Deadly heatwaves surge in India |
Increasingly scorching summer heat in India is leading to a big jump in heatwave deaths – and much worse is likely on the way, researchers have said. A modest 0.5 degree Celsius rise in average temperatures in India over the last 50 years has led to a nearly 150% hike in heatwaves that kill at least 100 people, said researchers at the University of California in Irvine. But with India now on a path to between 2.2 and 5.5 degrees Celsius of temperature rise by the end of the century, the rate of heatwave deaths in India – and other Asian nations – could soar, scientists say. With such temperature rises expected across much of the world by the end of the century, higher heat levels may make low-latitude developing nations in the Asian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa and South America practically uninhabitable during the summer months. The study, based on temperature and heat death data from India between 1960 and 2009, looked at heatwaves defined as three or more consecutive days of very high temperatures. It noted that in the years since 2009 heatwaves in India killed more than 1,300 people in 2010, 1,500 in 2013, and 2,500 in 2015 as summers grow hotter.
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