Heat Has Already Endangered More Than 1.5 Billion People This Year, Says Washington Post

Even before the start of June, heat endangered at least
1.5 billion people around the world, according to
a Washington Post analysis.

 It's barely into summer, not even astronomical summer quite yet, and the heat waves are building across the Northern Hemisphere. 

The year globally has been at a record hot pace this year. Often that heat is dangerous. 

An analysis by the Washington Post has concluded that 1.5 billion people around the world have already experienced heat that is potentially life-threatening. 

And this was as of the end of May. I doesn't include the heat now enveloping much of the United States, southeastern Canada and parts of Europe 

The baseline is what the National Weather Service has as a threshold for dangerous temperatures. They define it as a heat index of at least 103 degrees. 

Notice we're talking about heat index and not actual temperatures. If it's humid the heat index can be 103 degrees or more even if actual temperatures are only in the 90s. 

A healthy person exposed to such a heat index will probably end up with heat cramps and heat exhaustion. Prolonged exposure can cause heat stroke, which is a life-threatening condition.  

The Washington Post analysis  looked at 14,000 cities around the world to determine how many people were affected by this dangerous heat. It didn't include smaller towns and rural villages, so the 1.5 billion people is almost definitely an undercount. 

This is just a guess, but I imagine another billion people or more will wilt as the 103 degree heat danger threshold spreads to new areas through the summer.  

It has always gotten dangerously hot in some highly populated cities like Bangkok, Thailand and Mumbai, India. ]

However, as WaPo's Harry Stevens writes:  

"As global warming had nudged temperatures higher, days with dangerous heat have grown more common. Bangkok's 76 days of dangerous heat are a record for this point in the year (remember, as of  May 31), according to meteorological data beginning in 1979.

Other cities follow a similar pattern. Lagos, Nigeria, for instance, has faced 13 times as many dangerous heat days this year than average,"

 The heat in April and especially May struck a wide range of places. Southern Asia. Huge swaths of Africa. Central America. Mexico. Texas. Florida.   

So many more places will see dangerous heat - in some places repeatedly - before the cool breezes of autumn finally arrive in the Northern Hemisphere. 

We always say that the heat is most dangerous to the elderly and infirm, and that's certainly true. But everybody is at risk when the heat index gets ridiculous.   But as the Washington Post reports: 

"Even able-bodied people can fall victim to extreme heat. 'People typically are not aware that they're getting into trouble with the heat until they're really getting into trouble with the heat," said Kristie Ebi, an epidemiologist at the Center for Health and Global Environment at the University of Washington. 'You see people out doing activities when it's quite warm and suddenly, somebody collapses."

The grim part of this rising risk of deadly heat in the age of climate change is that it's all a sort of fossil fossil fuel-driven eugenics. Or at least Darwinism. 

WaPo 's Harry Stevens again:

"There is, however, a morbid silver lining to heat waves' lengthening duration. When a heat wave hits, mortality starts to rise after about 24 hours, as people unable to cool themselves down at night begin to perish, Ebi told me. 

But after a certain point, the death rate drops. Those most susceptible to heat's ravages have already passes away, leaving behind a population more fortified against the danger.

'A healthy adult can handle more days. It may not be pleasant, but, frankly, people have done this for millennia , Ebi said. 'It's the people who are more susceptible le to heat who we need to think about. And as the population is aging and taking more prescription medications, the pool of people who are susceptible is much larger.'"

There's a societal danger in all this. In some cultures, the elderly are revered. But - at least in my opinion - that reverence is fading, if it ever existed in some places, anyway. 

I really hope there's not a crowd out there who hopes climate driven heat "culls the herd."  The world can be a cruel place though. He just gotta keep hoping better minds and bigger hearts win the battle. 

 

 

Not Just Vermont: Misery Loves Company In Worldwide Floods

On July 12, the day after the Lamoille River receded enough,
Vermont highway crews begin repairs near the Wrong
Way Bridge along Route 15 in Cambridge. 

 Vermonters know from painful recent experience that we don't want anybody else to go through what we just did this month.  

Alas, a lot of people are going through this. Not only is the world baking in record heat this summer, It's also drowning in floods. 

It's everywhere. In neighboring New Hampshire and Massachusetts, floodwaters destroyed roads and houses in a daylong deluge on Sunday. 

In Pennsylvania, at least five people, including children, died in a remarkably sudden flash flood that caught them unaware in a semi-rural part of Bucks County. The flooding spread to New Brunswick, New Jersey Tuesday, nearly drowning  a family trying to escape the onrushing water. 

Just Wednesday morning, news broke of a flash flood emergency and "particularly dangerous situation in western Kentucky, especially around the city of Mayfield.  Nearly a foot of rain fell on the area in just a few hours, necessitating numerous water rescues. 

If Mayfield rings a bell, it's because it was the town decimated by a huge tornado in December, 2021.  Like that hurting town needs another big disaster. But there you go. 

It goes far beyond the United States. 

At least 40 people died in South Korea this month as flash floods lashed much of that nation.  Many of the victims were trapped in a tunnel when it almost instantly filled up with water. 

Monsoon floods strike India every summer, but this year's version is pretty extreme, even by their standards.

Floodwaters approached the famed Taj Mahal, though water is not expected to enter the World Heritage Site. However, it's rare for the flooding river to rise to levels so close to the compound. 

Severe floods last week also struck Japan, China and Turkey.

Floods occur every year somewhere, and this has gone on for millennia. Some of these floods are horrific.    But just like the greater propensity we've seen for heat waves in recent summers, floods have become a bigger threat, too. It's another climate change thing. 

As Phys.org points out:

"For every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) that the atmosphere warms, it holds approximately 7 % more moisture. According to NASA, the average global temperature has increased by at least 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880.

'Sixty-eight degree Fahrenheit can hold twice as mulch water as 50 degrees Fahrenheit,' said Rodney Wynn, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in  Tampa Bay. 'Warm air expands and cool air contracts. You can think of it as a balloon - when it's heated the volume is going to get large, so therefore it can hold more moisture.'

 This summer, El Nino has taken hold. El Nino generally heats the world up. It's working in concert with climate change to give us a glimpse of what the world's future will be like in the not distant future.

Don't think for a minute Vermont is free from any more giant floods since we've just been through two in 12 years. 

A Dartmouth study indicates extreme precipitation events in the Northeast are projected to increase by 52 percent by the end of the century. They definite these extreme events as 1.5 inches of rainfall or melted snow within a day. 

 The Dartmouth researchers said rainfall extremes have already increased markedly since about 1996.   The projected increase  in extreme rainfall would be blunted somewhat if real steps to sharply reduce carbon emissions take hold, but I'm not counting on that. 

One thing we can count on, sooner or later. Vermont will suffer another episode like we have this month. I hope Vermont officials continue to take seriously their commitment to build back with even more resilience in mind.