India experiences the second hottest period since 1970 due to climate change
The months of June, July, and August 2024 recorded India’s second-hottest season since 1970, a report titled, People Exposed to Climate Change: June-August 2024 released on Wednesday (September 18, 2024) by climate experts at Climate Central said.
As per the study by climate experts, Joseph Giguere and Andrew Pershing, cities that were most impacted in India are, Thiruvananthapuram, Kavaratti, Port Blair including Maharashtra’s Vasai, Virar, Thane and Mumbai. All these cities experienced over 70 days of high temperatures because of climate change.
Mumbai saw 54 days of high temperatures, above 39 degrees Celsius, considered dangerous to human health.
“Over 20.5 million people experienced high temperatures exceptionally influenced by climate change for at least 60 days in the past three months, making India the Southern Asian country with the most people exposed to temperatures driven by climate change,” the report said.
The report documents how human-induced climate change was evident in the region between these three months using primarily two tools: temperature anomalies and the Climate Shift Index.
Andrew Pershing, vice president for Science at Climate Central told The Hindu, “Climate change boosted temperatures this summer across India. Over one billion Indians were exposed to more than a week of potentially dangerous heat, and eight states and Union Territories experienced their hottest summer since at least 1970.”
The heat was especially intense in some of India’s cities, including New Delhi, Lucknow and Chandigarh, which suffered through exceptional heat waves of at least one week, Mr. Pershing added, “Climate change made the hot conditions this summer more likely and more severe. Summers in India will get continue to get hotter and more dangerous until the world stops burning coal, oil, and gas.”
Out of the total population of 1.38 billion people, over 426 million people experienced at least seven days of potentially risky temperatures that were hotter than 90% of temperatures observed in a local area over the 1991-2020 period. “Such temperatures are a conservative approximation of the local minimum mortality temperature, an indicator of the local links between temperature and mortality,” the report said.
Over 112 million people experienced at least a month’s worth of these potentially health-threatening temperatures.
Globally, the Climate Central report revealed that one in four people on the planet experienced climate change-driven temperatures every day in these months because of the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, and coal, and human activities.
“Between June and August, 2 billion people were exposed to more than 30 days of health-threatening temperatures strongly influenced by climate change. 72 countries experienced their hottest summer since at least 1970. 180 cities in the Northern Hemisphere experienced at least one extreme heatwave in these months. These heatwaves are, on average, 21 times more likely today because of carbon pollution, mainly caused by burning coal, oil and gas,” the experts said.
“High temperatures that were clearly influenced by climate change jeopardised the health of billions around the world during the past three months. No region, country, or city is safe from the deadly threats posed by burning fossil fuels,” Mr. Pershing said.
To estimate the risks of heat to human health, researchers looked at days in which temperatures were significantly hotter than the historical record — the risky heat days. Temperatures on these days are hotter than 90% of temperatures observed in a local area over the 1991-2020 period — this represents a minimum mortality threshold at which heat-related health risks climb statistically.