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1bn people will suffer extreme heat at just 2C heating, say scientists
(The Guardian, 9 Nov 2021) Climate crisis is driving up deadly combination of temperature and humidity, says study released at Cop26.
A billion people will be affected by extreme heat stress if the climate crisis raises the global temperature by just 2C, according to research released by the UK Met Office at the Cop26 climate summit. The scientists said that would be a 15-fold increase on the numbers exposed today.
The key goal of Cop26 is to keep the chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C alive but delegates said there is much work to do to achieve this in the summit’s final week.
The Met Office assessed wet-bulb temperature, which combines both heat and humidity. Once this measure reaches 35C, the human body cannot cool itself by sweating and even healthy people sitting in the shade will die within six hours. The Met Office analysis used a wet-bulb temperature limit of 32C, at which workers must rest regularly to avoid heat exhaustion, for at least 10 days a year.
If efforts to end the climate emergency fail and temperatures rise by 4C, half of the world’s population will suffer from this extreme heat stress.
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The Guardian, 9 Nov 2021: 1bn people will suffer extreme heat at just 2C heating, say scientists
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