Scientists say 4 billion people, about half the world\u2019s population, experienced at least one extra month of extreme heat because of human-caused climate change from May 2024 to May 2025.<\/p>\n
The extreme heat caused illness, death, crop losses, and strained energy and health care systems, according to the analysis from World Weather Attribution, Climate Central and the Red Cross.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough floods and cyclones often dominate headlines, heat is arguably the deadliest extreme event,\u201d the report said. Many heat-related deaths are unreported or are mislabeled by other conditions like heart disease or kidney failure.<\/p>\n
The scientists used peer-reviewed methods to study how much climate change boosted temperatures in an extreme heat event and calculated how much more likely its occurrence was because of climate change. In almost all countries in the world, the number of extreme heat days has at least doubled compared with a world without climate change.<\/p>\n
Caribbean islands were among the hardest hit by additional extreme heat days. Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States, endured 161 days of extreme heat. Without climate change, only 48 would have occurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes it feel impossible to be outside,\u201d said Charlotte Gossett Navarro, chief director for Puerto Rico at Hispanic Federation, a nonprofit focused on social and environmental issues in Latino communities, who lives in the San Juan area and was not involved in the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven something as simple as trying to have a day outdoors with family, we weren\u2019t able to do it because the heat was too high,” she said, reporting feeling dizzy and sick last summer.<\/p>\n
When the power goes out, which happens frequently in Puerto Rico in part because of decades of neglected grid maintenance and damage from Hurricane Maria in 2017, Navarro said it is difficult to sleep. \u201cIf you are someone relatively healthy, that is uncomfortable, it\u2019s hard to sleep … but if you are someone who has a health condition, now your life is at risk,\u201d Gossett Navarro said.<\/p>\n
Heat waves are silent killers, said Friederike Otto, associate professor of climate science at Imperial College London, one of the report\u2019s authors. \u201cPeople don\u2019t fall dead on the street in a heat wave … people either die in hospitals or in poorly insulated homes and therefore are just not seen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Low-income communities and vulnerable populations, such as older adults and people with medical conditions, suffer the most from extreme heat.<\/p>\n
The high temperatures recorded in the extreme heat events that occurred in Central Asia in March, South Sudan in February and in the Mediterranean last July would have not been possible without climate change, according to the report. At least 21 people died in Morocco after temperatures hit 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) last July. People are noticing temperatures are getting hotter but don’t always know it is being driven by climate change, said Roop Singh, head of urban and attribution at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, in a World Weather Attribution statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to quickly scale our responses to heat through better early warning systems, heat action plans, and long-term planning for heat in urban areas to meet the rising challenge,\u201d Singh said.<\/p>\n
City-led initiatives to tackle extreme heat are becoming popular in parts of South Asia, North America, Europe and Australia to coordinate resources across governments and other agencies. One example is a tree-planting initiative launched in Marseille, France, to create more shaded areas.<\/p>\n
The report says strategies to prepare for heat waves include monitoring and reporting systems for extreme temperatures, providing emergency health services, cooling shelters, updated building codes, enforcing heat safety rules at work, and designing cities to be more heat-resilient.<\/p>\n
But without phasing out fossil fuels, heat waves will continue becoming more severe and frequent and protective measures against the heat will lose their effectiveness, the scientists said.<\/p>\n
In conclusion, the impact of climate change on extreme heat is a pressing issue that affects millions of people worldwide. It is essential to take immediate action to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and implement strategies to prepare for heat waves. By working together, we can mitigate the effects of extreme heat and create a more sustainable future for all.<\/p>\n
A: The main cause of extreme heat is human-caused climate change.<\/p>\n
A: Approximately 4 billion people, about half the world\u2019s population, experienced at least one extra month of extreme heat due to climate change from May 2024 to May 2025.<\/p>\n
A: Low-income communities and vulnerable populations, such as older adults and people with medical conditions, suffer the most from extreme heat.<\/p>\n
A: Strategies to prepare for heat waves include monitoring and reporting systems for extreme temperatures, providing emergency health services, cooling shelters, updated building codes, enforcing heat safety rules at work, and designing cities to be more heat-resilient.<\/p>\n
A: Without phasing out fossil fuels, heat waves will continue becoming more severe and frequent, and protective measures against the heat will lose their effectiveness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Climate Change and Extreme Heat Scientists say 4 billion people, about half the world\u2019s population, experienced at least one extra month of extreme heat because of human-caused climate change from May 2024 to May 2025. The Impact of Extreme Heat The extreme heat caused illness, death, crop losses, and strained energy and health care systems, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-weather"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/wgntv.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/05\/Climate-Extreme-Heat-e1748600196825.jpg?w=900&w=900&resize=900,472&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21599,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21597\/revisions\/21599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}