New Delhi: Extreme heatwaves in South Asia during April, with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius, are 45 times more likely in the coming years, an analysis by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) has said.
The report also highlighted these events would become 0.85 degrees Celsius warmer because of climate change.
A rapid-attribution analysis conducted by an international team of leading climate scientists from the WWA group found that heat-related deaths were widely reported across Asia in April this year.
The study was conducted by 13 researchers as part of the WWA group, including scientists from universities and meteorological agencies in Malaysia, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK.
“At least 28 heat-related deaths were reported in Bangladesh, five in India and three in Gaza during April, while surges in heat deaths have also been reported in Thailand and the Philippines this year,” the report read.
Experts added the actual deaths could be much higher as these numbers are significantly underreported.
“These are only preliminary figures and because heat-related deaths are notoriously underreported, it is likely there were hundreds or possibly thousands of other heat-related deaths in Asia during April,” the WWA analysis added.
Asia was among the worst hit by severe heatwaves this April. It was the hottest April on record globally, and the 11th consecutive month when a hottest month record was broken.
In south and southeast Asia, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, broke records for the hottest April day.
In India, temperatures reached as high as 46 degrees Celsius in some parts. The heat was also extreme in West Asia, with Palestine and Israel experiencing temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius.
Carolina Pereira Marghidan, climate risk consultant at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and PhD researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, said the threat of extreme heat is rapidly increasing across Asia.
“More than four billion people live on the continent, with heat impacting the most vulnerable groups disproportionately,” she said.
Marghidan said the impact of heat on health was not well-monitored or documented. This, she said, hampered researchers’ ability to understand the true impact and full spectrum of risks associated with extreme heat.
The report said in South Asia, 30-day heatwaves can be expected once every 30 years.
“This result is consistent with World Weather Attribution’s previous studies in the region that found climate change made April heatwaves about 1 degree Celsius hotter and 10-30 times more likely. The analysis of historical weather data also found that similar heatwaves are twice as likely to occur during El Niño conditions,” the report read.
El Niño and La Niña are two phases of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The El Niño phase is marked by warmer temperatures, while La Niña refers to a cooling period.
In the Philippines, similar heatwaves are expected to occur about once every 10 years during El Niño conditions and about once every 20 years in other years. The WWA scientists said that without human-induced climate change, such an event would have been virtually impossible, even under El Niño conditions.
Mariam Zachariah, researcher at the Grantham Institute (Climate Change and the Environment) at Imperial College London, warned that climate change was bringing more days with potentially deadly temperatures to Asia every year.
“Unless the world takes massive, unprecedented steps to reduce emissions and keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, extreme heat will lead to even greater suffering in Asia,” Zachariah said.
Temperature recordings from West Asia also showed the impacts of human-induced warming this April.
“Climate change made the heat about five times more likely and 1.7 degrees Celsius hotter. In the future, extreme temperatures in West Asia could become even more frequent and intense,” the report said.
The findings added that if warming reaches 2 degrees Celsius, as it is expected to in the 2040s or 2050s unless emissions are rapidly halted, similar heatwaves will occur about once every five years and will become another 1 degree Celsius hotter.
Experts stressed that increased use of fossil fuels will lead to worsened impacts of extreme temperatures.
“From Gaza to Delhi to Manila, people suffered and died when April temperatures soared in Asia. If humans continue to burn fossil fuels, the climate will continue to warm, and vulnerable people will continue to die,” warned Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at Grantham Institute.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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