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Extreme heat and humidity a killer combination now affecting one third of the African urban population

Extreme heat to hit one third of the African urban population, Science Daily 

Date:

June 5, 2019

Source:

Université de Genève

Summary:

An international team of researchers has combined demographic projections and climate scenarios across Africa for the first time. Their results reveal the number of people who will potentially be exposed to extreme temperatures.

Climate change, population growth and urbanisation are instrumental in increasing exposure to extreme temperatures. Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, — in collaboration with the University of Twente (Netherlands) and the EU Joint Research Centre in Ispra (Italy) — assessed a range of possible scenarios regarding the rate of climate change and socio-economic development in 173 African cities for the years 2030, 2060 and 2090. Their results, which are published in the journal Earth’s Future, show that a third of African city-dwellers could be affected by deadly heat waves in 2090. The projections also highlight the influence of socio-economic development on the impact of climate change.

The effects of climate change are felt specifically in countries with tropical climates, which are characterised by high humidity and very high temperatures. Furthermore, countries in these regions — especially in Africa — are experiencing heavy urbanisation and socio-economic development, leading to an explosion in the size of urban populations. A combination of these two factors is having a major impact on the living conditions of city-dwellers in Africa, especially in terms of exposure to extreme — or even lethal — temperatures. “We consider the critical threshold to be 40.6°C in apparent temperature, taking humidity into account,” says Guillaume Rohat, a researcher at UNIGE’s Institute for Environmental Sciences (ISE). In fact, high outdoor humidity levels disrupt our ability to thermoregulate, with potentially fatal consequences………

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190605100340.htm

June 8, 2019 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AFRICA, climate change