Burning planet: why are the world’s heatwaves
getting more intense?
Climate change has meant that heatwaves ‘have
increased in frequency, intensity and duration across the world’. Photograph:
aryos/Getty Images
In March, the north and south poles had record
temperatures. In May in Delhi, it hit 49C. Last week in Madrid, 40C. Experts
say the worst effects of the climate emergency cannot be avoided if emissions
continue to rise
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Fiona
Harvey, Ashifa Kassam in Madrid, Nina Lakhani in Phoenix, and Amrit Dhillon in
New Delhi
Sat 18 Jun
2022 17.26 BST
When the
temperature readings started to come through from Antarctic weather stations in
early March, scientists at first thought there might have been some mistake.
Temperatures, which should have been cooling rapidly as the south pole’s brief
summer faded, were soaring – at the Vostok station, about 800 miles from the
geographic south pole, thermometers recorded a massive 15C hotter than the
previous all-time record, while at Terra Nova coastal base the water hovered
above freezing, unheard of for the time of year.
“Wow. I
have never seen anything like this,” ice scientist Ted Scambos, of the
University of Colorado, told the Associated Press.
But that
was not all. At the north pole, similarly unusual temperatures were also being
recorded, astonishing for the time of year when the Arctic should be slowly
emerging from its winter deep freeze. The region was more than 3C warmer than
its long-term average, researchers said.
To induce a
heatwave at one pole may be regarded as a warning; heatwaves at both poles at
once start to look a lot like climate catastrophe.
Since then,
weather stations around the world have seen their mercury rising like a global
Mexican wave.
A heatwave
struck India and Pakistan in March, bringing the highest temperatures in that
month since records began 122 years ago. Scorching weather has continued across
the subcontinent, wreaking disaster for millions. Spring was more like
midsummer in the US, with soaring temperatures across the country in May. Spain
saw the mercury hit 40C in early June as a heatwave swept across Europe,
hitting the UK last week.
Scientists
have been able quickly to prove that these record-breaking temperatures are no
natural occurrence. A study published last month showed that the south Asian
heatwave was made 30 times more likely to happen by human influence on the
climate.
Vikki
Thompson, climate scientist at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute,
explained: “Climate change is making heatwaves hotter and last longer around
the world. Scientists have shown that many specific heatwaves are more intense
because of human-induced climate change. The climate change signal is even
detectable in the number of deaths attributed to heatwaves.”
Friederike
Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute, Imperial
College London, said heatwaves in Europe alone had increased in frequency by a
factor of 100 or more, caused by human actions in pouring greenhouse gas
emissions into the atmosphere. “Climate change is a real game changer when it
comes to heatwaves: they have increased in frequency, intensity and duration
across the world,” she said.
This type
of heat poses a serious threat to human health, directly as it puts stress on
our bodies, and indirectly as it damages crops, causes wildfires and even harms
our built environment, such as roads and buildings. Poor people suffer most, as
they are the ones out in fields or in factories, or on the street without
shelter in the midst of the heat, and they lack the luxury of air-conditioning
when they get home.
Air-conditioning
itself is a further facet of the problem: its growing use and massive energy
consumption threatens to accelerate greenhouse gas emissions, just as we need
urgently to bring them down. Radhika Khosla, associate professor at the Smith
School at the University of Oxford, said: “The global community must commit to
sustainable cooling, or risk locking the world into a deadly feedback loop,
where demand for cooling energy drives further greenhouse gas emissions and
results in even more global warming.”
There are
ways to reduce the impacts for individuals, and to adapt our cities. Painting
roofs white in hot countries to reflect the sun’s rays, growing ivy on walls in
more temperate regions, planting trees for shade, fountains and more green
areas in cities can all help. More heavy-duty adaptation measures include
changing the materials we use for buildings, transport networks and other vital
infrastructure, to stop windows falling out of their frames, roads from melting
in the heat and rails from buckling.
But these
measures can only ever be a sticking plaster – only drastic cuts in greenhouse
gas emissions will prevent climate chaos. The current heatwaves are happening
as the earth has warmed by about 1.2C above pre-industrial levels – nations agreed,
at the Cop26 UN climate summit last November, to try not to let
them rise by more than 1.5C. Beyond that, the changes to the climate will be
too great to overcome with shady trees or white roofs, and at 2C an estimated 1
billion people will suffer extreme heat. “We cannot adapt our way out of the
climate crisis,” Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy,
told the Observer. “If we continue with business-as-usual greenhouse gas
emissions, there is no adaptation that is possible. You just can’t.”
Fiona Harvey
Even the
mountains, the traditional escape from the unbearable city heat, now offer
little respite
Every
summer, when the heat in the plains becomes unbearable, software engineer
Akhilesh Gupta does what the British used to do when they ruled India – pack
the family into the car and head out of New Delhi for a long drive to enjoy the
cool air of the mountains.
This year,
the family couldn’t wait to go. Since mid-March, the Indian capital has been in
the grip of a relentless heatwave with temperatures hovering about 45C, making
living and working insufferable.
In earlier
years, such high temperatures used to be a fleeting feature of the summer. This
year, they are the new normal. Demand for power has soared as Indians use more
air conditioners. Water shortages have hit some areas. Those who work outside –
construction labourers, autorickshaw wallahs, security guards – are among the
worst affected.
Street
vendors selling fruit, vegetables and flowers have been cowering under
makeshift awnings for shade while constantly splashing water on to their
produce to keep it from shrivelling up.
The Guptas
reached their destination in Nainital, more than 2,000m above sea level, to
find that the town was having the hottest summer for 30 years. One day it
touched an unprecedented 34C.
“I have
been coming here every summer since I was a kid and have never needed a ceiling
fan. It never used to go beyond 28C. We couldn’t go boating it was so hot. It
was better than Delhi but it was a huge shock to us,” said Gupta.
His friends
went trekking to even higher altitudes and found that mountains usually covered
in snow had only a dusting.
Heatwave
conditions have affected most areas of India since March. Data from the
Meteorological Department shows that Delhi has recorded a maximum temperature
of 42C (and above) on 25 days since the summer began – the highest number of
days since 2012. March was the hottest in India since records began 122 years
ago.
The kind of
crop damage that climate experts have predicted is already happening. Farmers
in north India have seen their wheat being burnt by the sun. An estimated 15 to
35% of the wheat crop in states close to Delhi – Punjab, Haryana and Uttar
Pradesh, India’s “wheat bowl” – has been damaged.
Climate
experts say heatwaves are what lie ahead for Delhi. Their estimates suggest
that Delhi has become so built-up that it has lost 50 to 60% of its wetlands
and natural ecosystem that could have moderated the temperatures.
In fact,
Abinash Mohanty, programme lead at the Council for Energy, Environment and
Water, wants the definition of a “heatwave” to be updated. He says heatwaves
should not be restricted to days when the temperature crosses a certain
officially ordained figure because for most poor Indians living in slums in
homes with tin roofs, the temperature is always five to six degrees hotter than
outside.
“People in
Delhi will experience extreme discomfort in the coming years. Their health and
productivity will be impacted, along with their cognitive health, because if
you can’t sleep at night, you can’t function the next day,” said Mohanty.
Female
construction workers already suffer health issues. “There aren’t any clean
public toilets around so I limit my water intake to avoid having to go to the
toilet. Last month I ended up in hospital with dehydration,” said Sunita Devi,
who is carrying rubble away from a construction site in Friends Colony West.
A 2019
International Labour Organization report, Working on a Warmer Planet, predicted
that India is expected “to lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs by
2030 as a result of heat stress”.
Individuals
are already feeling the impact. The lives of people such as Virender Sharma,
who sells flowers on the street, have become harsher. With the sun shrivelling
the flowers, his income has dropped drastically. The daily discomfort is
getting to him.
“There is nothing I can do to cool down. I splash
water on myself but it’s boiling hot,” he said, fanning himself in vain with
one of his palm fronds.
Amrit Dhillon in New Delhi
Distressed
swifts fall from their nests, wildfires rage – and everyone wants a slot at the
municipal pool
The
tree-lined streets of the Tiro de Línea neighbourhood in the southern city of
Seville have long played host to a little-known guest: one of Spain’s largest
swift colonies.
The birds
burst into public view this week, however, as the most visible symptom of the
days-long heatwave that has gripped much of the country.
“It was
Dante-esque,” said Maria del Mar Molina, one of the volunteers who went to
check on the colony last week. “There were hundreds of dead birds and hundreds
of others that were alive but suffering.”
The
heatwave – one of Spain’s earliest on record – had transformed their nests into
ovens just as the hatching season was under way. Ecologists estimate that thousands
of chicks fled their nests before they could fly.
“It breaks
your heart,” said Del Mar Molina, one of dozens of volunteers who have been
patrolling the pavements to collect birds that could be nursed back to health.
“This is a protected species, there should be some sort of climate emergency
protocol for these kinds of heatwaves.”
This sense
– that Spain needs to prepare for a heating world – echoed across the country
as it grappled with a pre-summer heatwave that sent temperatures soaring above
43C in parts of the country.
“Spain is
traditionally a very hot country but it’s getting even hotter,” said Rubén del
Campo, the spokesperson for the state meteorological agency Aemet. The
week-long wave of heat arrived as Spain was still reeling from the hottest May
in 58 years. “In less than a month we have had two very rare episodes of
extreme heat,” he said.
In eight of
the country’s 17 regions, firefighters scrambled to quell more than a dozen
wildfires. In the north-west region of Castilla y León, flames swallowed more
than 20,000 hectares (49,400 acres) and forced the evacuation of hundreds of people.
Few escaped
the suffocating blanket of heat that hovered over much of Spain. “People are
exhausted,” said Nuria Chinchilla, a professor and founder of the International
Centre for Work & Family at the IESE business school.
At a
meeting last week, executives told her that they had been allowing employees to
work through lunch and leave early. “They had noticed that the heat was
affecting productivity.”
Similar
debates swirled at schools across the country. In Catalonia, teachers flooded
social media with photos showing classrooms sweltering in 30C heat as they
protested that many schools still only have fans to counter it.
“The school
is an oven,” wrote one resident. “This is not how to teach or learn, it’s how
to make a roast.”
In Madrid,
residents scrambled for the hottest ticket in town: a spot at the municipal
swimming pools. In a city with an estimated one municipal swimming pool for
every 157,000 residents, that was far from easy.
Those who
managed to master the fickle app to snap up slots that went on sale 49 hours in
advance, still had to beat the crowd.
“It’s
impossible,” said Josué González Pérez, 33, after trying for two days without
success. “I’ll be staying at home with the fan on.”
With many
across Spain counting down to Sunday, when the heat was forecast to dissipate,
Del Campo warned of a broader pattern.
“In the past decade, heatwaves have been twice as
frequent as in previous decades,” he said. “So what is extraordinary now will
end up being normal.”
Ashifa Kassam in Madrid
In Phoenix,
the country’s hottest city, the temperature hasn’t dropped below 27C for two
weeks
More than
100 million Americans were urged to stay indoors over the past week, as
record-breaking temperatures left multiple people and thousands of cattle dead.
As
temperatures climbed to unseasonable highs, tens of thousands of people across
Ohio, Michigan and Indiana in the midwest were left sweltering without power
after storms and flooding damaged transmission lines.
Two women
were confirmed dead in Wisconsin, while in Arizona, the Maricopa county
coroner’s office is investigating 48 possible heat-related deaths dating back
to April. The true death toll is likely to be higher but heat fatalities are
not reportable.
Extreme
heat is America’s leading weather-related killer, and Phoenix in Maricopa
county is the country’s hottest and deadliest city.
“You never
get used to this heat, but we have to deal with it,” said Kim Gallego, 46, a
Phoenix city parks employee with a heat rash on her legs. Gallego starts work
at 5am and on Thursday it was already 44C by the time she knocked off at
1.30pm.
On
Wednesday, at least 16 US cities set or equalled daily records, according to
the National Weather Service. Excessive heat warnings were issued for parts of
the country less accustomed to scorching temperatures, especially so early in
the season.
In Kansas,
a state with twice as many cows as people, 2,000 animals were reported dead due
to stress caused by a combination of high temperatures and humidity.
Heat
advisories remain in place across the south-east and midwest – from Florida,
Louisiana and Mississippi to Kansas, Missouri and Minnesota on the Canadian
border – and are forecast to extend to east coast states such as the Carolinas,
where humidity levels will make it feel even hotter. Summer doesn’t officially
start until 21 June.
In Phoenix,
America’s fifth largest city with 1.6 million habitants, temperatures have
topped 38C every day in June, breaking several daily records with little
respite at night. The temperature has not fallen below 27C since the early
hours of 7 June. The impact of heat is cumulative and the body only begins to
recover when temperatures drop below 27C.
The city is
a sprawling urban heat island, where heat-trapping concrete and asphalt have
replaced desert and farmland to exacerbate the impact of global heating.
The extreme
heat is especially hard for those working or living outdoors or without air
conditioning.
Temperatures
in Dallas, Texas, reached 102F (39C).
Sareptha
Jackson, 60 and Jerry Stewart, 69, spent another week sweltering in their
rented apartment where the air conditioning has been broken for three years.
Even with fans running continuously, the temperature inside their apartment
hovered about 32C.
The couple
have been assessed for emergency housing since the Guardian last week reported
the dangerously hot conditions, and with higher temperatures on the way, the
move can’t come soon enough. “We can’t wait to be somewhere cool, it will be a
new beginning for us,” said Jackson.
Michael
McCabe, 23, a valet at a hotel in central Phoenix, said: “I’ll go home and jump
in the pool to cool down. After that I’ll be sitting next to a fan for the rest
of the night.”
Heat deaths
are preventable but rising. The frequency, duration and intensity of heatwaves
have been rising steadily over the past 50 years, according to the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Nina Lakhani in Phoenix, Arizona
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