by A deadly heat wave in Gaza in April, where punishing temperatures made an already dire humanitarian crisis hotter and more likely, according to an analysis published on Tuesday.
Gaza was not alone. The climate crisis caused several heat waves across a large area of the Asian continent last month during the hottest April on record, an analysis by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative found.
The WWA report divided the heat waves into three areas: West Asia, the Philippines and a region that includes South and Southeast Asia.
In West Asia, the analysis focused on the Palestinian territories, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan, where temperatures rose above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) last month. He found that climate change has made heat in this region about five times more likely and 1.7 degrees Celsius warmer than it would have been before people started burning large amounts of fossil fuels.
Rising temperatures have had a major impact on the 1.7 million displaced people in Gaza, who are already struggling with access to inadequate water and inadequate healthcare. There was little respite from the relentless heat for those crammed into tents and makeshift shelters, often covered with plastic sheets. At least three people, including two children, died reportedly from the heat, notes the analysis.
In the Philippines, last month’s extreme heat – which forced hundreds of schools to close when temperatures reached more than 42 degrees Celsius – was so strongly linked to human-caused global warming, the report concluded. that it would be impossible without him.
To calculate the impact of climate change on extreme heat, WWA researchers used weather data and computer models to compare the world’s current climate – which is around 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than when humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels – with the world’s climate. spent
“From Gaza to Delhi to Manila, people suffered and died as April temperatures rose in Asia,” said Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment and author of a report , in a statement. “Heat waves have always happened. But the extra heat, driven by emissions from oil, gas and coal, is leading to death for many people.”
The scientists also examined the role of El Niño, a natural climate pattern that influences global weather.
Although they found that it had no effect on the April heat of West Asia, it affected the intensity of heat in the Philippines, pushing temperatures up by 0.2 degrees Celsius. However, the impact of climate change was greater, with temperatures increasing by around 1.2 degrees.
In today’s warmer world, the types of extreme heat waves experienced by Gaza and West Asia, as well as the Philippines, are not rare and can be expected about once every 10 years, the report found. . But he warns that worse could be in store.
If the planet’s average temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which is expected to happen in the 2040s or 2050s if the world does not decarbonize quickly enough, similar extreme heat waves could be expected once every five years in Western Asia and every two or three years in the Philippines.
A heat wave made 45 times more likely
The WWA analysis also looked at parts of South and Southeast Asia, many of which also experienced unprecedented heat last month.
Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam broke records for their hottest day in April, while temperatures soared to 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit) in India. Bangladesh and Thailand also experienced scorching April temperatures and were included in the study.
Climate change has also played a significant role in this region, according to the analysis, making heat 45 times more likely and 0.85 degrees Celsius warmer.
The scientists took a simpler approach than usual for this part of Asia, looking only at weather data and not at computer models, because the region overlapped with two previous analyzes of extreme heat events in 2022 and 2023, which also found that climate change played a strong role. .
The numbers in the report are important, Otto said, “because they show us that climate change has really changed everywhere in terms of extreme heat.” But numbers alone don’t necessarily indicate how bad the impacts are – these depend on people’s vulnerability and exposure.
Days with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) were “very difficult for people working outside, for people living in informal housing (and) for people living in refugee camps,” Otto said.
Asia also has some of the fastest-growing cities in the world, Carolina Pereira Marghidan, a climate risk adviser at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, said on a call with reporters. This results in rapid development without planning. “Many cities have seen large losses of green space,” Pereira said, adding to the effects of extreme heat on residents.
The world must take “huge and unprecedented steps to reduce emissions,” Mariam Zachariah, a researcher at the Grantham Institute, said in a statement. If not, she said, “the extreme heat will cause more suffering in Asia.”
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