Deadly humid heat could affect billions and reach US Midwest

• Deadly humid heat could affect billions and reach the US Midwest.
• Billions of people could face life-threatening conditions.
• This particularly affects some of the world’s largest cities.

Billions of people could face life-threatening conditions during periods of deadly, humid heat as global temperatures rise research published on Monday warns that within this century.

This particularly affects some of the world’s largest cities, including Delhi and Shanghai. According to the report’s authors, The dangerous combination of heat and humidity could expand to regions like the U.S. Midwest under more severe warming scenarios.

Study co-author Matthew Huber, from Purdue University in Indiana, expressed his concern, stating, “It’s very disturbing; it’s going to send a lot of people to emergency medical care.”

The study builds upon Huber’s previous research, which focused on the threshold at which heat and humidity become lethal to humans without access to shade or cooling technologies like air conditioning.

The research indicates that if global temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, approximately 750 million people could experience one week per year of potentially deadly humid heat.

This threat would extend to over 1.5 billion people, as outlined in the paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) at a 3-degree Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) increase.

According to the 2022 United Nations Emissions Gap report, under existing policies, the world is projected to experience a 2.8-degree Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) increase by 2100.

The study warns that if global warming continues, major cities from Lagos, Nigeria, to Chicago, Illinois, will be affected, and new risk areas are emerging in South America and Australia.

The study further predicts that at a 4-degree Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) increase, Hodeidah, Yemen, could face nearly 300 days per year of unsurvivable humid heat.

Scientists use a measurement called “wet-bulb” temperature to monitor such moist heat, which is similar to how the human body cools down through sweating.

Huber proposed a wet-bulb temperature of 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) persisting for six or more hours as a conservative limit for human tolerance in 2010.

A subsequent study conducted by a group of American scientists, including Daniel Vecellio, found that the limit was lower, between 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) and 31 degrees Celsius (88 degrees Fahrenheit).

Huber and Vecellio collaborated on this study to apply this lower limit to various future climate warming scenarios, ranging from 1.5 degrees Celsius to 4 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit).

Atmospheric scientist Jane Baldwin from the University of California Irvine, who was not involved in the research, commented, “This will be a critical benchmark for future studies.”

She added, “Unfortunately, it’s a somewhat grimmer picture than you would have gotten with the 35-degree Celsius limit.”

This research contributes to the growing concern about the increasing prevalence of dangerous wet-bulb temperatures, as demonstrated in another study published last month in Science Advances.

This study used Vecellio’s threshold, combined with weather station data and climate models, to reach a similar conclusion: that the geographical extent and frequency of dangerous humid heat will rise significantly, even with moderate global warming.

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