(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



India may tip this year to a wet-bulb temperatures threshold that will test human survival. [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-04-16  

Wild Bengal Tigers drink water somewhere in an Indian tiger preserve. Animals in some parts of the Indian Sub-continent risk lethal heat temperatures due to dangerous wet bulb temperatures caused by soaring temperatures from human climate change disruption, rising ocean temperatures, a super El Nino, and Monsoon.

If the air becomes too humid and is combined with record-breaking high temperatures causing the body’s sweat to inhibit evaporation from the body, the ability to cool itself is dangerously compromised. The phenomenon is known as the wet-bulb temperature, and the threshold of humidity and heat in Celsius is 35 degrees and Fahrenheit 95 degrees. That threshold will be pushed to the outer limits in India, warn experts.

Historically, India has dealt with significant heat events over the millennia, many of which were catastrophic. In 1768-1771, for example, the British Empire was shaken when over 10 million people died in Bengal due to El Nino.

El Nino has already arrived in Peru, and it is slowly building off the coast of India.

Spring arrives, and the country warms up. The World Bank has warned that the Indian subcontinent is getting too hot, and many swathes will become uninhabitable.

And, so, 2023 begins.

March 22, 2023: Vernal equinox or the beginning of spring is the moment when the sun crosses the celestial equator, an imaginary line that runs through the sky right above the equator exactly between the hemispheres. That happened at 2.54 am Indian time on Tuesday. “Once the sun’s vertical rays approach the equator, the maximum temperature will rise beginning today [Tuesday],” Prof S Abhilash, director of the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), told South First on Tuesday.

Temperatures in the Ganga and Indus valleys will likely pass the critical wet-bulb temperatures that the IPCC warned must never come to pass — might occur in 2023.

Conservative by design, the IPCC mentioned if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced. They have not been and will not be anytime soon. India primarily uses coal for energy, and the hotter it gets, the more it will burn if it can find enough. It is a vicious feedback loop, one that we will not want to face.

India is unprepared for this looming catastrophe; no nation is safe from the climate crisis. However, some countries will get there sooner than others.

From QZ:

India’s heat action plans (HAPs), designed to tackle economically damaging and life-threatening heat waves, generally focus on dry extreme heat. It does not consider the threats posed by humid heat, according to a report by The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) released on Monday (March 27). It is unclear if authorities consider risk factors like the duration of continuous heat, hot nights and so on, on a region-wise basis. India has 37 HAPs across 18 states at the city, district, and state levels. Only two of these, however, have explicitly targeted vulnerable groups. The rest only have broad categories such as the elderly, outdoor workers, and pregnant women. Even the solutions proposed do not necessarily focus on them, the CPR report stated. Moreover, these HAPs do not have enough funds. Insufficient capacity building and a lack of transparency are also matters of concern. “There is no national repository of HAPs and very few HAPs are listed online. Further, it is unclear whether these HAPs are being updated periodically and whether this is based on evaluation data,” the report stated, emphasizing investment in areas like local heat research ecosystem.

Thailand just measured over 45°C for the first time on record. A new national heat record has been set. A brutal heatwave tightens its grip across more than a dozen countries in Asia. Scott Duncan

That would be 113.72 Fahrenheit

India and Pakistan in 2022 had record-breaking heatwaves. What follows is commonly called; climate change as a threat multiplier.

Record Smashing Heatwave in India and Pakistan Sparks Landfill Fires and Power Outages

The heatwave has sparked a number of worrying issues in India. The extreme heat caused a massive fire in an equally massive landfill in the city of Bhalswa, where the blaze reached higher than a 17-storey building and covered an area bigger than 50 football fields. The risk of fire there is particularly high as 2,300 tonnes of the city’s waste are dumped in landfills every day. As organic waste decomposes, it creates a build-up of highly combustible methane gas, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Three other landfills around the Indian capital have also caught fire in recent weeks. Other major issues at hand include crop damage – where India’s wheat crop is usually harvested in the month of April, potentially exacerbating global wheat shortages and food insecurity following the Russian invasion of Ukraine – as well as increasing pressure on domestic energy demand. India’s electricity demand has soared to a record high in April from the surge in the use of air conditioning. Total power demand rose 13.2% to 135.4 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), with electricity demand in the north growing between 16- 75%, according to Reuters’ analysis of government data. This has led to a coal shortage in India – also exacerbated by the war in Ukraine – and triggered the country’s worst power crisis in more than six years. Millions are left without power for up to nine hours a day, and critical services such as hospitals are threatened by blackouts.

Why does the power grid fail when everyone turns on the air conditioner?

From the Lewis University Presser:

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/16/2164161/-India-may-tip-this-year-to-a-wet-bulb-temperatures-threshold-that-will-test-human-survival

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/