Rising heat 'nearing threshold where healthy are at risk'
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00:00We can now bring in Chloe Brimicombe, Climate Scientist at the Wegener Centre at the University
00:06of Graz. Thank you very much for joining us here on France 24 today. Now we are seeing
00:10high temperatures impact a number of regions in the world from the United States to Saudi
00:15Arabia, India. How do you explain all this happening at the same time?
00:21So we've seen over the last couple of years this happening quite often and it is as a
00:25result of climate change. So as the report said, climate change causes heat waves to
00:30occur more frequently, last longer and be more intense. But we're also seeing a greater
00:36number of people exposed to extreme heat conditions year on year. And we know that this will only
00:42get worse if we do not reduce emissions and therefore baseline temperatures and therefore
00:48our extremes from climate change.
00:50But Chloe, what we're seeing this time around is, you know, when we have floods, of course
00:56there are people who die. Now people are dying from the heat. In India, people wouldn't really
01:02die before. Now we have tens of people, 52 just this week, according to one newspaper
01:07in Saudi, over a thousand people have died during the Hajj pilgrimage. Is this a phenomenon
01:12that's going to continue where people are actually going to start dying from the heat?
01:16Yes, exactly. So we do know that people have died in heat waves before, but what we're
01:22now seeing, which is very good news, is this being reported. And this means that we can
01:27change the tide and put in place measures like heat plans and heat early warning systems
01:33so that we can stop these people dying. So in a lot of cases, these deaths can be preventable.
01:39The people that are most at risk of dying are those that are over the age of 65, have
01:43a pre-existing medical condition, and also sometimes at risk are infants and children
01:49because they have a smaller body area and can't cope in the heat as well as adults.
01:54So, but in India, for example, we're seeing a threshold being close to being reached where
01:59even healthy people would experience heat illnesses and also be at risk of dying, which
02:06is very concerning.
02:07I understand that you said the elderly and the young are particularly more prone to dying
02:14from the heat, but isn't it also the poorest in society, those who don't have access to
02:19proper shelters, air conditioning, the possibility of remote work, what have you?
02:25Yes. So people that are the poorest in society, we are seeing more and more inequitably impacted
02:32by climate change, whether this is heat or flooding, because simply they can't get access
02:37to the adaptation strategies that they need. And so increasingly, this group should be
02:42targeted by governments when they put in place adaptation plans so that they can access cooling
02:48or that they can protect their houses from flooding, for example.
02:52Chloe, let's talk about the importance of minimum nighttime temperatures, because I
02:56don't know if you saw in my introduction, I said in Delhi this week, the minimum nighttime
03:01temperature on one of the nights was some 35.2 degrees Celsius.
03:05That's incredibly hot, isn't it?
03:07Why is the nighttime minimum temperature so important?
03:12The nighttime minimum temperature, that is a very hot temperature.
03:16And I think you said that it maybe even broke all the records.
03:2050-year records. Yes, it did.
03:21Yeah, 50-year records.
03:23And it's important because it means that you can't even cool your body down overnight.
03:28So traditionally, if you're exposed to hot temperatures during the day, then you have
03:33this period overnight where you do cool down.
03:36But this means that you can't cool your body down unless you have access to these cooling
03:43strategies. So this could be showers or baths, so lots of water or, for example, air
03:50conditioning. But even in some cases, it's been found that if you put a fan directly on
03:56your body in that sort of temperature, it doesn't actually cool you down.
03:59It just dehydrates you and you would need more water to actually cool yourself down.
04:05So it is very concerning.
04:07And again, it just shows that people that without access to cooling now and in the future
04:13will continue to be inequitably impacted by things like heat waves.
04:18Chloe, I'm asking you a question for pretty much my entire production team here.
04:24If you're in Paris, if you know people in Paris, you know that the summer has been
04:30non-existent. I'll put it that way.
04:32We've had just maybe three, four days of sunny days and the rest of it, it's rained, been
04:38grey or depressing, muggy.
04:41Why is it that it's an either-or situation?
04:44Either it's super hot and there's a heat wave or we have these periods of no summer?
04:51It's a very good question.
04:53There's also been a lot of flooding in Germany as a result of this sort of same
04:57weather. It's because when you have a high pressure system, the atmosphere is trying
05:04to get into equilibrium with each other.
05:06So you have to have a really like quite low pressure system to cancel out the effect of
05:12that very strong high.
05:13And that's why you see this real difference in very rainy places right next to places
05:20where it's incredibly hot.
05:21And we're just seeing more of this, but it is incredibly concerning in both cases
05:27because then you have this effect of really bad flooding somewhere and then really bad
05:32heat in the neighbouring country or even within the same country.
05:36So, yes.
05:38Given that we're seeing what we're seeing right now with these incredibly high
05:43temperatures in parts of the US and floods, as you mentioned, in Germany, can we expect
05:47winters to also progressively get milder?
05:52So the trend is that winters are getting progressively milder.
05:56I know that in recent years, we've also had quite a few really quite cold snaps.
06:00But if you look at the trend over time, these cold snaps have actually got warmer.
06:05So we're not seeing them as being as intense.
06:09And that is the trends that we think will continue with climate change, which is
06:16it's also not good in the meantime, because you still have to protect people's lives in
06:21the winter. So we are also seeing increases of sometimes if it's a warmer period of
06:26like flu, because it can spread quicker than if it was very cold and then it would die.
06:32But you still need to protect people in the winter from very cold weather.
06:36But you now also need to protect them from really hot weather.
06:39So it's a bad time.
06:42Indeed, Chloe. Thank you very much, Chloe, for joining us there.
06:45Thank you very much for that.