Compound heat waves have double impact

(Climate ActionEco Business, 4 Jun 2019) And now, a new climate hazard: compound heat waves. US scientists on a double whammy: rising mercury, followed swiftly by more of the same.

Be ready for climate hazard in a new form – the compound heat waves that hit you, leave you, and come back again.

As the world warms, say US scientists, the risk of economically devastating, physically debilitating and potentially lethal extremes of heat will multiply, and in unexpected ways.

Researchers picture a world in which the most vulnerable – those already ill or elderly, housed in substandard buildings in crowded cities – are laid low and gasping by several days of extreme heat. Even if the temperatures drop a little, the buildings in which they live will still “store” heat to intolerable levels.

And then, unexpectedly, the extremes of heat return. Hospitals could be overwhelmed. Electric grids might experience overload. Harvests could wither. And the weakest could dehydrate and die.

“Averaged over time, heat waves are the most deadly type of disaster in the United States, in addition to causing many emergency room visits, lost working hours and lower agricultural yields,” said Jane Baldwin of Princeton University in the US.

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Climate ActionEco Business, 4 Jun 2019: Compound heat waves have double impact