India could experience intense heat waves that could break the human survivability limit, according to a World Bank report. The country has recorded several deaths due to intense heat waves over the last couple of decades.
The World Bank report titled “Climate Investment Opportunities in India’s Cooling Sector” said the country is experiencing higher temperatures that arrive earlier and stay far longer, reported PTI.
“In April 2022, India was plunged into the grip of a punishing early spring heat wave that brought the country to a standstill, with temperatures in the capital, New Delhi, topping 46 degrees Celsius (114 degrees Fahrenheit). The month of March, which witnessed extraordinary spikes in temperatures, was the hottest ever recorded”, it said.
According to a similar study conducted by researchers at IIT Gandhinagar, the frequency of extreme weather events, such as floods and heatwaves, is expected to increase significantly in India as a result of climate change.
To estimate India’s likelihood of consecutive extremes, such as summer heatwaves and excessive rainfall during the subsequent summer monsoon season across the same locations, the research team looked at the years 1951 to 2020.
“The G20 Climate Risk Atlas also warned in 2021 that heat waves across India were likely to last 25 times longer by 2036-65 if carbon emissions remain high, as in the IPCC’s worst-case emission scenario,” the report further read.
According to one study, if the global mean temperature increases by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius from the pre-industrial level, the proportion of the total population and urban area that will be exposed to successive extremes will rise rapidly.
According to the researchers, under the lowest emission scenario, the length of a heatwave will grow from an average of 3 days in the current climate (1981-2010) to 11 days by the end of the twenty-first century (2071-2100).
Under the scenario with the highest emissions, however, they predicted that the length of heat waves would increase to 33 days by the end of the century.
(With input from PTI)
