“What we see now will be normal, even cold, in a world between +2° and +3°C,” he added.
Until now, the planet has increased its temperature on average by 1.1 °C and, if all the commitments of the signatories of the Paris agreement are fulfilled, the temperature would rise 2.8 °C, according to UN climate experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In India and Pakistan, the IPCC forecasts “more intense, longer, and more frequent heatwaves.”
“Before human activities caused warming, the heatwave affecting India would have occurred every 50 years,” says Marian Zachariah of Imperial College London. Now it can happen “once every four years”.
Danger of “wet thermometer”
According to a study published this week in the journal Sciencethings could get even worse faster than estimated.
The team led by Vikki Thompson of the University of Bristol ranked the worst dog days since 1960, based not on the maximum temperature, but on the difference from what was expected. And surprisingly, Southeast Asia is not at the top of the list.
“When you look at the difference from the local normal temperature, the heat waves in India and Pakistan have not been this extreme before,” Vikki Thompson and colleague Alan Thomas Kennedy-Asser said.
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According to his calculations, Southeast Asia did take first place in 1998. With a difference from normal temperature of the same magnitude, India would exceed 50°C, far from the estimated 40°C, notes Vikki Thompson.