Studies have shown that climate change has increased the possibility of heat waves by 30 times.

Since the beginning of March this year, most parts of India and Pakistan have been in extreme heat. The attribution analysis of this heat wave released by WWA on May 24th shows that climate change has increased the possibility of this heat wave by 30 times.

Apita Mondal, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology who participated in the study, said that if the global temperature rises by 2 degrees Celsius, a heat wave like this may occur every five years.

"High temperature is very common in India and Pakistan, but this time it is unusual because it came so early and lasted so long. The high temperature in most parts of the two countries has not been alleviated for several weeks, and hundreds of millions of outdoor workers are facing great danger. With global warming, this situation will happen more frequently, and we need to be fully prepared for it. " Mondal said. "This is a signal of future development."

March this year was the hottest period since India had meteorological records 122, and the neighboring Pakistan also experienced record-breaking high temperatures. After entering April, the heat wave continued to intensify. At the same time, the rainfall in the two countries decreased by 765,438+0% and 62% respectively, and at least 90 people died due to the heat wave, which is likely to increase further.

On April 19, a man tried to cool himself down in New Delhi, India.

In order to quantify the impact of climate change on the long-term high temperature in India and Pakistan, a group of scientists from all over the world compared the climate after global warming of about 1.2 degrees Celsius since the end of 19 with the past climate by analyzing weather data and computer simulation.

The daily average maximum temperatures in India and Pakistan in March and April are analyzed. The results show that the annual occurrence probability of this rare heat wave weather with long duration is 1%, which is increased by 30 times due to human-induced climate change.

"As far as heat waves are concerned, climate change is the real game changer. In the context of global warming, the number of these extreme climates is increasing. As long as greenhouse gas emissions continue, events like this will become more and more common disasters. " Friedrich Otto, a climate scientist in Imperial College London, London, one of the participants in the above research, said.

The early arrival of the heat wave and the lack of rain caused extensive and serious damage. The surge in electricity demand in India in the past few months has exhausted coal reserves and caused a serious power shortage, affecting millions of people.

In addition, India originally planned to export a record amount of wheat this year to cope with the global food supply shortage caused by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Now, due to the events triggered by climate change, the Indian government announced on May 13 that wheat exports were banned, and most of them were cancelled, which further pushed up the global wheat price and aggravated concerns about the global food crisis.

(newspaper)