The model shows that life-threatening heat events will occur more often and in more places as the world warms

A team of climate scientists at the Woodwell Center for Climate Research in the US, working with a colleague from the Environmental Change Institute in the UK, has found through climate modeling that several life-threatening thermal events are likely to occur around the world. In their study, reported in the journal advance science, The group used climate models and data from weather stations to make predictions about how many places will see dangerous heat events when global temperature milestones are reached.

In 2010, two climate scientists, Stephen Sherwood and Matthew Hopper, conducted experiments to find the upper limits of human survival under heat stress. They used what became known as the wet bulb test, where a wet towel was placed over a thermometer to represent 100% humidity and high temperatures.

In their experiments, they found a maximum of six hours at 35 °C (95 °F) as an upper limit for human survival, when it is not possible for people to take action to cool themselves. In this new effort, the research team collected data from thousands of weather stations around the world to learn more about the risks of heat events as increasing numbers of places become uninhabitable.

The research team noted that several places have already witnessed such conditions, although all of them are located in places where such conditions are expected, such as the Middle East and the North Indian Plain. They then trained a climate model on the data they obtained and used it to predict the places where they obtained weather data from stations. Predictions have been made under multiple scenarios, all based on increases in global temperatures.

The model showed more places experiencing thermal events that would not be considered habitable under a wet-bulb test as the planet warms. For example, a global increase of 2°C would increase the number of places experiencing such events by 25%. The model showed that these increases may sometimes occur in places that are not accustomed to such heat, such as parts of the East Coast and Midwest in the United States, and in central Europe.

They also found that for already hot areas, such experiences can become annual events. The team summarized their findings by noting that climate change will produce many similar events in the future in places that are not prepared to deal with them. They point out that the likely result may be a higher number of deaths.