Basra – population 2.1 million – registered 53.9C two years ago. Several cities in the Gulf are getting increasingly accustomed to such heat. Hajj pilgrims in Mecca are sprayed with cool water.Infrastructure would be crippled and ecosystem services would start to break down, with long-term consequences.” Road surfaces started to melt, neighbourhoods went quiet because people didn’t go out and water vapour rose off the ground like a desert mirage,” he recalls. In neighbouring India two years earlier, the town of Phalodi sweltered in 51C – the country’s hottest ever day.ĭev Niyogi, professor at Purdue University, Indiana, and chair of the Urban Environment department at the American Meteorological Society, witnessed how cities were affected by extreme heat on a research trip to New Delhi and Pune during that 2015 heatwave in India, which killed more than 2,000 people. Earlier this year, the 1.1 million residents of Nawabshah, Pakistan, endured the hottest April ever recorded on Earth, as temperatures hit 50.2C. Not long ago, 50C was considered an anomaly, but it is increasingly widespread. A motorcyclist is sprayed with water in Karachi.But this protection weakens if there is already moisture in the air. In dry conditions, sweat – the body’s in-built cooling system – can lessen the impact. Human cells start to cook, blood thickens, muscles lock around the lungs and the brain is choked of oxygen. Deaths rise.Īt 50C – halfway to water’s boiling point and more than 10C above a healthy body temperature – heat becomes toxic. The elderly, the obese and the sick are most at risk. Hospitals see a surge in admissions for heat stress, respiratory problems and other illnesses exacerbated by high temperatures. Road surfaces started to melt … Dev Niyogi, American Meteorological Society But eventually lethargy sets in as the body shuts down and any prolonged period spent outdoors becomes dangerous. Appetites tend to fade as the body avoids the thermal effect of food and tempers are quicker to flare – along, perhaps, with crime and social unrest. The temperature is recalibrating behaviour. Power grids are overloaded by cooling units. But the novelty quickly faded when relentless sunshine became the norm.
Maybe in the beginning, when it was just a hot spell, there was a boom in spending as delighted consumers snapped up sunglasses, bathing suits, BBQs, garden furniture and beer. Melting asphalt cause road markings to distort in New Delhi.
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