Climate change has at least doubled the chances of a heat wave in Uttar Pradesh that recently swept through the state and caused several hospitalizations, an analysis using a metric called the Climate Shift Index (CSI) shows.
Developed by Climate Central, an independent US-based group of scientists and communicators, the CSI is a tool that quantifies the contribution of climate change to daily temperatures.
Sixty-eight patients died at a district hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia in the five days to Monday amid a punishing heat wave in the region. However, officials said only two people died as a result of heatstroke. According to media reports, the neighboring district of Deoria also died in the extreme heat.
Researchers at Climate Central performed the analysis using the CSI, which measures how often and by how much temperatures have moved away from the historical average. A higher index indicates a more dramatic change compared to the past.
CSI levels greater than one indicate climate change. Levels between two and five mean that climate change has made these temperatures two to five times more likely. The analysis shows that certain parts of Uttar Pradesh have reached a CSI level of three, indicating temperatures that have become at least three times more likely due to climate change.
A new analysis shows that the three-day extreme heat over Uttar Pradesh from June 14 to 16 was at least twice as likely to have been caused by human-caused climate change, Climate Central researchers said.
According to them, extreme temperatures combined with high humidity contributed to the severity of the event.
“Time and time again, we see that climate change is dramatically increasing the frequency and intensity of heat waves, one of the deadliest weather events there is. Our latest World Weather Attribution (WWA) study showed that this has been recognized in India, but the implementation of heat action plans it is slow.
“It absolutely has to be priority adaptation action everywhere,” said Friederike Otto, co-head of the WWA, a panel of international experts who study the role of climate change in extreme weather events.
In April, heat and prolonged exposure to the sun claimed 13 lives at a festival in Navi Mumbai’s Kharghar.
Common symptoms include very high body temperature, rapid breathing, rapid heart rate, altered mental status, and sometimes dry skin or lack of sweating. However, these symptoms can also occur in other emergencies, making it difficult to immediately identify heatstroke as the cause of death.
Heat waves prevailed for about 10 days in eastern Uttar Pradesh, eastern Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh and for about 12 days in Odisha, Jharkhand, Telangana and north coastal Andhra Pradesh without any rain-producing weather system, the India Meteorological Department said.
A heat wave is declared if the maximum temperature of the station reaches at least 40 degrees Celsius in plains, at least 37 degrees Celsius in coastal areas and at least 30 degrees Celsius in hilly areas and the deviation from normal is at least 4.5 degrees Celsius. .
Heat Action Plans are the primary policy response to economically damaging and life-threatening heat waves. These prescribe several activities, disaster response and heat wave response measures to reduce the impact of heat waves.
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