South Asia, home to one-fifth of the world’s population, could see humid heat rise to unsurvivable levels by century’s end if nothing is done to halt global warming, warned the researchers of the study in the journal Science Advances.
The research is based on two climate models. One is a “business-as-usual” scenario in which little is done to contain climate change, and the second is aimed at limiting temperature rise to well below two degrees Celsius, as pledged by more than 190 nations under the 2015 Paris climate accord.
The study is the first of its kind to look not just at temperatures, but at the forecast of “wet-bulb temperature,” which combines temperature, humidity and the human body’s ability to cool down in response.
Under a business-as-usual scenario, “wet-bulb temperatures are projected to approach the survivability threshold over most of South Asia by the end of the century,” said the report. About 30 percent of the population in the region would be exposed to these harmful temperatures, up from zero percent at present, said the report.
The densely populated farming regions of South Asia could fare the worst, because workers are exposed to heat with little opportunity for escape into air-conditioned environments.
But researchers said their models gave cause for hope, too. Under the scenario in which steps are taken to limit warming over the coming decades, the population exposed to harmful wet-bulb temperatures would increase from zero to just two percent.
Temperatures would still reach dangerous levels (over 31 Celsius), but would not be quite so close to the fatal threshold.
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Source: Agence France Presse, 3 August 2017