Scientists Warn - Even W. "Just" 2C Increase, 1 Billion People Will Face Potentially Lethal Heat [View all]

[hatrack]

A billion people will be affected by extreme heat stress if the climate crisis raises the global temperature by just 2C, according to research released by the UK Met Office at the Cop26 climate summit. The scientists said that would be a 15-fold increase on the numbers exposed today.

The key goal of Cop26 is to keep the chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C alive but delegates said there is much work to do to achieve this in the summit’s final week.

The Met Office assessed wet-bulb temperature, which combines both heat and humidity. Once this measure reaches 35C, the human body cannot cool itself by sweating and even healthy people sitting in the shade will die within six hours. The Met Office analysis used a wet-bulb temperature limit of 32C, at which workers must rest regularly to avoid heat exhaustion, for at least 10 days a year. If efforts to end the climate emergency fail and temperatures rise by 4C, half of the world’s population will suffer from this extreme heat stress.

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Scientists have been warning about deadly levels of heat and humidity for some years. A 2015 study showing the Gulf in the Middle East, the heartland of the global oil industry, set to suffer heatwaves beyond the limit of human survival if climate change is unchecked. The deadliest place on the planet for extreme future heatwaves will be the north China plain, one of the most densely populated regions in the world and the most important food-producing area in the huge nation, according to 2018 research.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/09/1bn-people-will-suffer-extreme-heat-at-just-2c-heating-say-scientists