Heat waves will make regions uninhabitable

“There are clear limits beyond which people exposed to extreme heat and humidity cannot survive,” the report said. File Photo

By Agence France-Presse October 12, 2022 

HEAT waves will become so extreme in certain regions of the world within decades that human life there will be unsustainable, the United Nations and the Red Cross said Monday (Tuesday in Manila).

Heat waves are predicted to "exceed human physiological and social limits" in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and south and southwest Asia, with extreme events triggering "large-scale suffering and loss of life," the organizations said.

Heat wave catastrophes this year in countries like Somalia and Pakistan foreshadow a future with deadlier, more frequent and more intense heat-related humanitarian emergencies, they warned in a joint report.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) released the report in advance of next month's COP27 climate change summit in Egypt.

"We don't want to dramatize it, but clearly the data shows that it does lead toward a very bleak future," said IFRC Secretary-General Jagan Chapagain.

They said aggressive steps needed to be taken immediately to avert potentially recurrent heat disasters, listing steps that could mitigate the worst effects of extreme heat.

Limits of survival

"There are clear limits beyond which people exposed to extreme heat and humidity cannot survive," the report said.

"There are also likely to be levels of extreme heat beyond which societies may find it practically impossible to deliver effective adaptation for all.

"On current trajectories, heat waves could meet and exceed these physiological and social limits in the coming decades, including in regions such as the Sahel and south and southwest Asia."

It warned that the impact of this would be "large-scale suffering and loss of life, population movements and further entrenched inequality."

The report said extreme heat was a "silent killer," claiming thousands of lives each year as the deadliest weather-related hazard — and the dangers were set to grow at an "alarming rate" due to climate change.

According to a study cited by the report, the number of poor people living in extreme heat conditions in urban areas will jump by 700 percent by 2050, particularly in West Africa and Southeast Asia.

"Projected future death rates from extreme heat are staggeringly high — comparable in magnitude by the end of the century to all cancers or all infectious diseases — and staggeringly unequal," the report said.

Agricultural workers, children, the elderly, and pregnant and breastfeeding women are at higher risk of illness and death, the report claimed.

"As the climate crisis goes unchecked, extreme weather events, such as heat waves and floods, are hitting the most vulnerable people the hardest," said UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths.

"The humanitarian system is not equipped to handle crisis of this scale on our own."

'Previously unimaginable'

Chapagain urged countries at COP27 to invest in climate adaptation and mitigation in the regions most at risk.

CHA and the IFRC suggested five main steps to help combat the impact of extreme heat waves, including providing early information to help people and authorities react in time, and finding new ways of financing local-level action.

They also included humanitarian organizations testing more "thermally appropriate" emergency shelter and "cooling centers," while getting communities to alter their development planning to take account of likely extreme heat impacts.

OCHA and the IFRC said there were limits to extreme heat adaptation measures.

Some, such as increasing energy-intensive air-conditioning, are costly, environmentally unsustainable and contribute themselves to climate change.

If emissions of the greenhouse gases which cause climate change are not aggressively reduced, the world will face "previously unimaginable levels of extreme heat."

Just Wild Weather?

My column in Mindanao Daily, BusinessWeek Mindanao and Cagayan de Oro Times

In the Philippines, we experience the rainy season right now. "Breakthrough" insights into atmospheric dynamics are emerging from "high-maths" —scrutiny of satellite data, say scientists. Their Nature magazine article identifies "significant connections" between extreme rain events, often far apart. Their premise: global rainfall distribution stems "probably" from planetary waves named after the late Swedish-born American meteorologist Carl-Gustaf Rossby. Just wild weather or is it a climate disruption?

Normally, monsoon rains over northern Queensland last a "few days," says Australia's Bureau of Meteorology. Unprecedented downpours began a week ago, with more forecast and troops sent to a disaster zone. Evacuations have included these residents of Rossela, near Townsville, and German and Swiss tourists plucked from the Diamantina River catchment by a local farmer using his private helicopter.

Indonesia, like much of Asia including the Philippines i.e., weathers annual monsoon rains. Last weekend, the Sulawesi islands counted its toll: at least 70 people were killed as rivers burst their banks and landslides buried village homes. Authorities said a state of emergency would remain in place.

My home country Germany experiences records all-time hottest June temperature. Imagine: the last day of June 2019 has beaten all previous temperature highs for the month. Heat-related deaths have been reported in several European countries. Yes, whole Europe is melting.

A pharmacy sign in Carpentras, a village in southeastern France, which shortly held the country's all-time heat record of 44.3 degrees on Friday. The record was topped again later in the afternoon in the southern village of Villevieille, 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the east, which measured a thermometer-busting 45.1 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit).

Germany set its all-time highest June temperature on last Sunday, with 38.9 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) recorded in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The country has been baking in an early summer heat wave; however, Germany's all-time high of 40.3 degrees Celsius still stands.

Fifty-seven runners at Hamburg's half marathon were hospitalized on Sunday after many collapsed in temperatures of up to 35 degrees Celsius, officials said. Some 141 runners needed treatment in what fire service officials described as "an emergency with mass casualties."

Temperatures in the country's central Rhine-Main region and into eastern Germany were expected to reach up to 39 degrees on Sunday, according to the German Weather Service (DWD).

Organizers of Sunday's Frankfurt Ironman event made contingency plans to keep athletes from overheating.

As huge crowds gathered in Paris for the annual gay pride parade, firefighters sprayed water on revelers, some of whom used rainbow-colored fans and umbrellas to counter the heat, which was expected to hit 38 degrees.

Heat-related deaths have been reported in Germany and France, mainly among the elderly. At least eight people drowned in bathing accidents across the two countries.

France's new record temperature of 45.9 degrees was set on Friday near the southern city of Montpellier, the Meteo-France weather service said. It is just the seventh European nation — along with Bulgaria, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece and North Macedonia — to record temperatures above 45 degrees.

During Sunday prayers in Rome, Pope Francis said he was praying "for those who have suffered the most from the consequences of this heat."

Meteorologists blamed a blast of hot air from northern Africa for the scorching early European summer, but temperatures are set to drop for the remainder of the week over much of Europe.

Drownings and wildfires - the amazing side effects of climate change.The heatwave sparked large blazes including in Spain, where firefighters on Saturday fought wildfires just as they finally contained another inferno after nearly 72 hours.Wildfires burned down several houses and at least 550 hectares (1,359 acres) of land in the south of France as temperatures hit upwards of 45 degrees on Saturday.The blistering heat also claimed the lives of a 17-year-old harvest worker in Spain and a 72-year-old homeless man in Italy.

Just wild weather or climate change? Do you know the answer, my dear readers?