Human-caused climate change has made April’s record-breaking moist heat wave at least 30 times more likely to occur in Bangladesh, India, Laos and Thailand, the study said. , photo credit: file photo
An international team of leading climate scientists, which studied the extremely humid summer in South and Southeast Asia in April 2023, said that heat waves in India and Bangladesh that used to occur on average less than once a century, now This can be expected to happen about once in five. Year.
In Bangladesh and India, events like the recent humid heat wave occurred less than a century on average, according to a rapid attribution analysis by the team as part of the World Weather Attribution Group; They can now be expected to occur once in five years and if temperature rise reaches 2°C – as will happen within about 30 years if emissions are not cut sharply – such events will occur less frequently on average. At least once every two years.
In the last two weeks of April 2023, many parts of Bangladesh, India, Thailand and Lao PDR experienced record high temperatures.
The study was conducted by 22 researchers as part of the World Weather Attribution Initiative, including scientists from universities and meteorological agencies in India, Thailand, Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Kenya, the Netherlands, the UK and the United States.
Human-caused climate change has made April’s record-breaking moist heat wave at least 30 times more likely to occur in Bangladesh, India, Laos and Thailand, the study said.
long and hot
Around the world, climate change has made heat waves more common, longer and hotter.
To measure the impact of climate change on Asian heatwaves, scientists analyzed weather data and computer model simulations to compare weather as it is today, after about 1.2 degrees Celsius of global warming since the late 1800s, to the past With the climate of, the following peer-reviewed methods.
who is weak
Chandrasekhar Bahinipati of the Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati and one of the scientists involved in the study said, “Although we have considered heatwave as one of the deadliest disasters, there is a lack of it especially in countries like India, Bangladesh and Thailand. Who is vulnerable Knowledge regarding loss and damage estimation, home coping mechanisms, and the most effective heat action plan.
He said that except human casualties, other economic and non-economic loss and damage indicators have not been documented.