Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions is turning the world into a boiling pot: the number of extremely hot days, up to 50 degrees, has doubled since the 1980s. The alarm was raised by the BBC in a survey which revealed that torrid temperatures affect more and more areas of the planet, putting human health and beyond at risk.
In the analysis of the British broadcaster it is noted that the total number of days above 50 degrees has increased every decade since 1980. On average, until 2009, temperatures exceeded this threshold about 14 days a year. Which became 26 between 2010 and 2019. In the same period, they hit 45 degrees for two more weeks each year. The Middle East and the Gulf are confirmed as the hottest regions, but this summer there were the first signs that the phenomenon is spreading: this is the case of Italy, with the record of 48.8 degrees recorded in Sicily, and of Canada, where 49.6 degrees were reached at the height of a black season that cost over 700 deaths from the heat and hundreds of fires.
According to the scientists, among other things, these values will also occur elsewhere. The main culprit, once again, is fossil fuel. “The rise in temperatures can be attributed 100 percent to fossil emissions,” estimated Friederike Otto, associate director of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University. And in the community of experts there are many calls to act quickly to reverse the trend. Especially in view of the UN climate conference, COP26, scheduled for next November in Glasgow, the request to governments is that they commit themselves to new cuts in emissions. “With continued emissions and lack of action, not only will these extreme heat events become more severe and more frequent, but recovery will become increasingly challenging,” warned Sihan Li, a researcher at Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment.
The heat peaks that are becoming a constant weaken the ecosystem, agriculture and water supply, but also jeopardize the safety of buildings, roads and energy supply systems. And above all, they threaten people’s lives. From this point of view, the prospects between now and 2100 are even worse. Another study, from Rutgers University in the United States, predicted that by the end of the century up to 1.2 billion people worldwide could face conditions of heat stress if current levels of global warming are not reduced – or four times more than today.