According to interdisciplinary research from the Purdue University College of Sciences and Purdue Institute for a Sustainable Future, if global temperatures rise by 1°C or more from current levels, each year, billions of people will be exposed to heat and humidity so extreme, that they won’t be able to cool themselves naturally. According to the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the effects of global warming over 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels on human health will worsen over time. Human bodies can only take a specific amount of heat and humidity before suffering heat-related illnesses like heat stroke or heart attacks. Billions of people may be pushed beyond these thresholds as global warming raises the temperature.
The world’s temperatures have risen by around 1°C, since the Industrial Revolution, which started in the 18th century, when people began using fossil fuels to power machinery and factories. The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 by 196 countries, intends to keep global temperature increases to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial levels. To pinpoint regions of the Earth where warming would result in heat and humidity levels exceeding human limits, the research team used models to simulate global temperature increases in the range of 1.5-4°C, corresponding to the worst-case scenario where warming would begin to accelerate.
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The study suggests that if global temperatures rise by 2°C above pre-industrial levels, high-humidity heat waves that surpass human tolerance will be experienced by the 800 million people who live in sub-Saharan Africa, the 2.2 billion people who live in eastern China, and the Indus River Valley of Pakistan, and a billion people who live in eastern China. Unfortunately, many afflicted people may not have access to air conditioning or any other practical means of reducing the harmful impacts of the heat because these are low-to middle-income countries.
If the Earth’s warming continues to 3°C above pre-industrial levels, the eastern seaboard and the middle of the US will start to experience heat and humidity levels beyond human tolerance. And if temperatures rise further, we will live in a world where crops fail, and millions or billions of people try to leave their home countries because they are inhospitable. Even when they remain within the established human limits, excessive heat and humidity should always concern individuals, according to the experts, regardless of how much the world heats. They discovered that elderly folks experience heat stress and the related health effects at lower heat and humidity levels than young ones.
Poorer countries are predicted to see high population expansion in the future decades and will endure the most heat stress. Although these countries produce significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than developed ones, this is still true. Due to this, billions of poor people will suffer, and many of them may pass away. But wealthier nations will also feel the effects of this heat, and everyone can anticipate suffering some loss in the interconnected globe.
