{"id":62340,"date":"2024-05-30T14:24:33","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T14:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/30\/experts-warn-of-heat-risks-as-indias-temperatures-climb-again\/"},"modified":"2024-05-30T14:24:33","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T14:24:33","slug":"experts-warn-of-heat-risks-as-indias-temperatures-climb-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/30\/experts-warn-of-heat-risks-as-indias-temperatures-climb-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts warn of heat risks as India’s temperatures climb again"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Experts<\/div>\n
Extreme temperatures<\/a> across India<\/a> are having their worst impact in the country’s teeming megacities, experts said Thursday, warning that the heat is fast becoming a public health crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

India is enduring a crushing heatwave<\/a> with temperatures in several cities sizzling well above 45 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).<\/p>\n

Temperature readings in the capital New Delhi rose into the high 40s Celsius this week, with power usage in the city — where the population is estimated at more than 30 million — surging to a record high on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“Cities are more vulnerable to the compounding effects of urbanisation<\/a> and climate change<\/a>,” said Aarti Khosla, director at research institute Climate Trends<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Expect a greater number of hotter days, prolonged dry spells and less rainy days as weather patterns continue to change due to increased human emissions,” she told AFP.<\/p>\n

– Heat ward and ice baths -In Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia hospital, a specialised unit is busy treating patients with heat-related illnesses.Equipped with immersion ice baths, the unit has treated eight heat-struck patients in the past week.<\/p>\n

One person died Wednesday, medics said, with a body temperature that had surged to a fatal 41.5C (106.7F).<\/p>\n

Among those admitted to the unit were manual labourers, most aged between 40 and 50, who work under the blazing sun.<\/p>\n

“Treatment depends upon very quick, very rapid intervention and very rapid cooling,” hospital director Ajay Shukla said, warning that the mortality rate for severe cases is around “60-80 percent”.<\/p>\n

The rising temperatures hit the vulnerable the hardest, including those on the economic margins, experts said.<\/p>\n

“When the individual is dehydrated, extreme heat exposure will thicken their blood and cause organs to shut down, resulting in death within hours, popularly called ‘heat stroke<\/a>‘,” said Vidhya Venugopal, director at Sri Ram Institute of Higher Education and Research<\/a> in Chennai. <\/p>\n

“We urgently need… action to protect exposed populations.”<\/p>\n

‘About survivability’<\/strong>
India is no stranger to searing summer temperatures but years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.<\/p>\n

The highest confirmed temperature ever recorded in India was 51C (123.8F), in Phalodi on the edge of Rajasthan’s Thar Desert in 2016.<\/p>\n

Khosla, from Climate Trends, described heatwaves as “the single largest threat to India’s well-being today”, adding that recent high temperatures were “proof that the issue is now about survivability”.<\/p>\n

No relief comes at night.<\/p>\n

A study published by New Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment<\/a> (CSE) this month said Indian cities were not cooling down after sunset as much as they had in the decade of 2001-2010.<\/p>\n

It found temperatures then had dropped after dusk nearly 2C more than today.<\/p>\n

“Hot nights are as dangerous as midday peak temperatures,” it said.<\/p>\n

“People get little chance to recover from daytime heat… exerting prolonged stress on the body.”<\/p>\n

‘Caused by burning coal<\/a>‘<\/strong>
Researchers say human-induced climate change has driven the devastating heat impact<\/a> in India and should be taken as a warning.<\/p>\n

“The suffering India is facing this week is worse because of climate change, caused by burning coal, oil and gas and deforestation,” said Friederike Otto, a climatologist at the Imperial College London<\/a> and director of World Weather Attribution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The world’s most populous nation is the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases but has committed to achieve a net zero emissions economy by 2070 — two decades after most of the industrialised West.<\/p>\n

For now, it is overwhelmingly reliant on coal for power generation.<\/p>\n

The government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi<\/a>, who is seeking a third term in ongoing elections, says the fossil fuel remains central to meeting India’s rising energy needs and lifting millions out of poverty.<\/p>\n

“What we are seeing in India is exactly what scientists said would happen if we didn’t stop heating the planet,” Otto said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Extreme temperatures across India are having their worst impact in the country’s teeming megacities, experts said Thursday, warning that the heat is fast becoming a public health crisis. India is enduring a crushing heatwave with temperatures in several cities sizzling well above 45 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Temperature readings in the capital New Delhi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img.etimg.com\/photo\/msid-110568854,imgsize-54178.cms","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[602],"tags":[53823,5418,59996,10307,6573,6236,1029,53588,59994,53324,27030,59998,273,925,2910,21691,59995,650,59999,7320,58963,123,59997],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62342,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62340\/revisions\/62342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}