What's considered officially “dangerous heat” in coming decades will likely hit much of the world at least three times more often as climate change aggravates, according to a new study, reports AP.
The study concluded that a heat index considered “extremely dangerous” where the feels-like heat index exceeds 124 degrees (51 degrees Celsius) will likely strike a tropical belt that includes India one to four weeks a year by century's end.
In much of Earth's wealthy mid-latitudes, spiking temperatures and humidity that feel like 103 degrees (39.4 degrees Celsius) or higher -- now an occasional summer shock — which statistically should happen 20 to 50 times a year by mid-century, said a study Monday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
By 2100, that brutal heat index may linger for most of the summer for places like the U.S. Southeast, the study's author said.
And it’s far worse for the sticky tropics. “So that’s kind of the scary thing about this,” said study author Lucas Zeppetello, a Harvard climate scientist. “That’s something where potentially billions of people are going to be exposed to extremely dangerous levels of heat very regularly. So something that's gone from virtually never happening before will go to something that is happening every year.”
There's only a 5% chance for warming to be that low and that infrequent, the study found. What's more likely, according to the study, is that the 103-degree heat will steam the tropics “during most days of each typical year” by 2100.
Bd-pratidin/Ishrar Tabassum
