• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska March 14, 2023
U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse March 14, 2023
$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’ March 14, 2023
UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’ March 9, 2023
Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions March 9, 2023
Next
Prev

Three Times More City Dwellers Face Dangerous Heat, Humidity

October 5, 2021
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

Heatwave over the Feleacu hills

Heatwave over the Feleacu hills

15
SHARES
 

This story includes details about the impacts of climate change that may be difficult for some readers. If you are feeling overwhelmed by this crisis situation here is a list of resources on how to cope with fears and feelings about the scope and pace of the climate crisis.

The number of city dwellers exposed to dangerous levels of heat and humidity has tripled in little more than one human generation, from 1983 to 2016, concludes a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
Subscribe

By 2016, at least 1.7 billion were exposed to multiple days during which temperatures and humidity rose to levels at which even very healthy people found it debilitating to work outdoors, the study of more than 13,000 cities states.

And in a separate study, researchers warn that the combined impact of climate change and forest loss in Brazil could expose more than 11 million people to extreme enough heat stress to produce dehydration, exhaustion, collapse ,and even death.

Researchers have been warning for decades, and with increasing alarm, about the damaging consequences for human health of ever-higher temperatures. The two new studies are concerned with what could happen as levels of atmospheric carbon continue to rise in response to ever-greater combustion of fossil fuels.

But the first is a based on a careful, detailed examination of what has already happened on a day-to-day basis in 13,115 cities worldwide over a sequence of 34 years. Cities already hold more than half the global population. In a few decades, this will have risen to two thirds of all the people on Earth.

And cities, notoriously can be dramatically hotter than the surrounding countryside: this is the “urban heat island effect.”

The U.S. researchers behind the PNAS study used satellite data and ground instrument readings to assemble their figures, and matched it with population statistics for those cities over the same period. They defined their heat wave danger zone as 30°C on a measure called wet bulb globe temperature to take account of the impact of humidity on human health: humans can stand higher temperatures at low humidity, because they can cool by perspiration, but as humidity levels rise, this becomes more difficult. At a high enough wet bulb temperature, humans overheat, so that exhaustion, collapse, and death from a range of sudden conditions become an increasing hazard.

The data tell a clear story measured in person-days: in 1983, 40 billion people were exposed to potentially dangerous wet-bulb temperatures for at least one day. By 2016, this number had risen to 119 billion, almost three times as many. During those 34 years, the planet’s human population increased by nearly three billion, and the proportion of city dwellers rose, too, so the growth in human numbers accounted overall for two-thirds of the extra hazard.

Planetary heating accounted for the rest. But the proportions depend acutely on location. Population growth accounted for most of the extreme heat person-days in rapidly growing cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou in China, or Yangon in Myanmar. In Baghdad, Cairo, Kuwait City, Lagos, Kolkata, and Mumbai, more than half the hazard came from the warming climate. Some 17 cities added an entire month of extreme heat days over the 34-year period. Many were in warm climates dominated by big river systems.

“A lot of these cities show the pattern of how human civilization has evolved over the past 15,000 year,” said Cascade Tuholske, of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, who led the study. “The Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Ganges. There is a pattern to the places where we wanted to be. Now those areas may become uninhabitable. Are people really going to want to live there?”

The question is not a new one. It has already been raised again and again. The next step is to identify which communities could be most at risk. These include, according to research in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, 12 million now living in Brazil’s northern states of Pará and Amazonas.

The threat comes from global heating driven not just by fossil fuel combustion, but also by deforestation: intact forests almost everywhere around the globe have an insulating effect, moderating summer heat and alleviating winter cold, and Brazil’s rainforest, notoriously, has been increasingly at risk. The latest projections of temperature increase find that of the nation’s 5,565 municipalities, 16%—with a total population of 30 million—might by 2100 meet thermal stress as a consequence of the conversion of forest to savannah. Of these, 42% are in Brazil’s northern region and among “the most socially vulnerable,” the scientists say.

There will be damage, too, to the national economy, as conditions for outdoor work become increasingly difficult to tolerate. By 2030, a 1.5°C increase in global temperatures could reduce the nation’s work capacity by the equivalent of 850,000 full-time jobs.

“Extreme heat conditions induced by deforestation may have significant and long-lasting effects on human health,” said Paulo Nobre of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, one of the authors. “If deforestation continues at its current rate, the effects for our civilization will be dramatic.”



in Asia, Brazil, China, Cities & Communities, Climate News Network, Forests & Deforestation, Health & Safety, Heat & Temperature, Middle East

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr
Oil & Gas

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
67
David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr
Community Climate Finance

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
98
Behrat/Wikimedia Commons
Clean Electricity Grid

Hawaii Firm Turns Home Water Heaters into Grid Batteries

March 14, 2023
305

Comments 1

  1. Walter Lowder says:
    1 year ago

    the climate goals cannot be met. Two many countries will have to meet conditions. I would prefer to read a website that would focus on AFTER THE FACT. When should I be selling my Miami vacation home or moving away from Chinas Yellow river. There is no website devoted to this.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Behrat/Wikimedia Commons

Hawaii Firm Turns Home Water Heaters into Grid Batteries

March 14, 2023
305
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board/flickr

$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’

March 14, 2023
143
David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
98
EcoAnalytics

Canadians Want Strong Emissions Cap Regulations, Not More Missed Targets

March 14, 2023
76
Rebecca Bollwitt/flickr

Fossils Stay ‘Oily’, Gibsons Sues Big Oil, U.S. Clean Energy Booms, EU Pushes Fossil Phaseout, and Fukushima Disaster was ‘No Accident’

March 14, 2023
76
U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
67

Recent Posts

Raysonho/wikimedia commons

Purolator Pledges $1B to Electrify Last-Mile Delivery

March 14, 2023
50
United Nations

UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’

March 10, 2023
89
Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions

March 10, 2023
172
jasonwoodhead23/flickr

First Nation Scorches Imperial Oil, Alberta Regulator Over Toxic Leak

March 8, 2023
365
MarcusObal/wikimedia commons

No Climate Risk Targets for Banks, New Guides for Green Finance as 2 Federal Agencies Issue New Rules

March 8, 2023
234
FMSC/Flickr

Millions Face Food Insecurity as Horn of Africa Braces for Worst Drought Ever

March 8, 2023
241
Next Post
Daria Devyatkina/Flickr

Homes in Climate Danger Zones Could Cost Canadians Billions Per Year

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}