India’s Heatwave Crisis: Beyond Temperatures to Human Impact
Image Source: Indiaspend
As of March 2024, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) announced the year’s first heatwave in isolated parts of West Rajasthan, signalling the onset of a scorching summer. This declaration, however, merely hints at a broader and more severe crisis affecting the country: the increasing menace of humid heatwaves. Such conditions, significantly underestimated by the current heatwave metrics based solely on temperature, pose a dire threat to public health and safety.
Existing heat wave forecasting systems provided by the IMD take into account the prevailing temperatures without the widespread effects of extreme humidity. This oversight leaves a large portion of the population unaware and unprepared; they are not exposed to the real impact of these conditions. The concept of wet bulb temperature, which accurately reflects heat stress on the human body through the combination of air temperature and humidity, is absent from the IMD framework, despite local cases of dangerously high readings in Maharashtra.
In reaction to growing worries, the IMD has brought phrases like ‘heat nighttime conditions’ and ‘warm humid climate’ to explain the nuanced outcomes of expanded nighttime temperatures and humidity. Yet, the lack of clean definitions and thresholds for those conditions underscores the necessity for a more complete technique for measuring heat stress, specifically as weather alternate intensify the frequency and severity of heatwaves.
The growing lethality of heatwaves is a right-away effect of anthropogenic weather trade, with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels accomplishing new highs. India, witnessing a median temperature growth since 1950, unearths its diverse climatic areas, which include traditionally cooler hilly areas susceptible to unparalleled temperature rises. This vulnerability, coupled with the urban warmness island impact and the disproportionate effect on marginalised groups, highlights the inadequacy of modern heatwave metrics to seize the full quantity of fitness risks.
Heat stress, leading to conditions such as heat stroke, involves complex physiological pathways that result in mortality, emphasising the need for metrics that encompass the varied effects of heat on human health. The National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health (NPCCHH) aims to address these impacts through awareness, healthcare capacity building, and climate-resilient infrastructure. However, with the planet nearing the 1.5-degree Celsius warming threshold, a more urgent and comprehensive action plan is required.
To better protect public health and ensure preparedness, experts recommend revising IMD’s heat wave parameters to include relative humidity and wet bulb temperature, and these changes will make the warnings not only accurate but will accurately reflect the reality of tropical countries. Furthermore, the publication that the limit of 35°C wet bulb temperature may be too high for more humid regions like India requires local studies to set more appropriate limits.
As India faces more intense and humid heatwaves, upgrading the IMD’s criteria and adopting a more nuanced understanding of heat stress are crucial steps. These efforts, combined with immediate and sustained actions to curb greenhouse gas emissions, are vital in the fight against climate change. Global solidarity and action are imperative, underscoring the need for a unified response to this existential threat.
In conclusion, as India rides the rising heat wave, the focus needs to be shifted from resource to sustainable resilience. A country’s ability to adapt, mitigate, and mobilise will determine not only its ability to withstand heat waves but also its role in the global effort to combat climate change.
As India confronts the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves, the narrative shifts from reactive measures to proactive resilience-building. In the face of an uncertain climate future, the country’s ability to adapt, mitigate, and mobilise will not only determine its resilience to heatwaves but also its role in the global fight against climate change.
Team Profile
- Content Editor
- Yangchula Bhutia is a budding journalist currently pursuing her Master's degree in Journalism at Jadavpur University. Her passion lies in environmental issues, and she aspires to make a difference through impactful storytelling focused on environmental challenges and solutions.
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