Showing posts with label Fatal heat waves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fatal heat waves. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

More than 150 fall ill from extreme heat at New Jersey graduations. A ‘mass casualty incident’ as temperatures soar to upper 90s fahrenheit in the region

Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, New Jersey. Photograph: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

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More than 150 people fell ill with heat at an outdoor high school graduation ceremony in New Jersey on Monday – and the fire chief of the city of Paterson declared “a mass casualty incident” due to the overwhelming number of those who needed emergency treatment.

The incident happened as students from several local schools in the city gathered at Hinchliffe Stadium to hear their names read out as graduates. Paterson’s fire department said about 50 people were evaluated, and nine were sent to a local hospital from the stadium.

During a second ceremony at the stadium, about 100 people ended up needing treatment – and seven were hospitalized. The Paterson mayor, André Sayegh, declared a state of emergency due to the high heat and canceled all recreational activities “until further notice”.

 

Temperatures in the region have soared in recent days, registering in the upper 90s fahrenheit. But the humidity pushes heat indexes to 107F (42C). In all, 150 million people have been under heat alerts from Maine to eastern Texas.

The brutal temperatures stem from a so-called heat dome, which is when high pressure from Earth’s atmosphere compresses warm air and pushes it down to the surface. They have been increasingly common in the US in recent years because of rising global temperatures being spurred by Earth’s ongoing climate emergency.

Temperatures in New York City on Tuesday inspired the attorney general, Letitia James, to predict that the heat could benefit the progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani, who is running in the Big Apple’s closely watched Democratic mayoral primary.

“Mother Nature will have the last word,” James said. Taking an overt dig at Mamdani’s rival Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as New York governor amid accusations of sexually harassing women, James added: “She represents women scorned.

“How ironic.”

In the north-eastern US, several heat records look set to fall as temperatures in some locations are predicted to reach 110F. “Significant and dangerous heat continues today, with potentially some of the hottest temperatures in over a decade in some locations,” the weather service Accuweather said on Tuesday.

The national Storm Prediction Center says all areas of New Jersey have a “marginal” risk of seeing severe thunderstorms with small hail and damaging winds on Wednesday. That could bring a reprieve from the temperatures while giving residents other weather perils to worry about.

 


 

Thursday, May 22, 2025

'Shrinking Nemo': Smaller clownfish sound alarm on ocean heat

Clownfish are one of the most recognisable reef fish, known for their orange and white stripes


 Helen Briggs

 

Fish similar to those made famous by the movie Finding Nemo are shrinking to cope with marine heatwaves, a study has found.

The research recorded clownfish living on coral reefs slimmed down drastically when ocean temperatures rocketed in 2023.

Scientists say the discovery was a big surprise and could help explain the rapidly declining size of other fish in the world's oceans.

A growing body of evidence suggests animals are shape shifting to cope with climate change, including birds, lizards and insects.

The research took place in Kimbe Bay, a key area of marine biodiversity

"Nemos can shrink, and they do it to survive these heat stress events," said Dr Theresa Rueger, senior lecturer in Tropical Marine Sciences at Newcastle University.

The researchers studied pairs of clownfish living in reefs off Kimbe Bay in Papua New Guinea, a hot spot of marine biodiversity

The wild clownfish are almost identical to the ones depicted in the movie Finding Nemo, in which a timid clownfish living off the Great Barrier Reef goes in search of his son.

The scientific study took place in the summer of 2023, when temperatures shot up in the oceans, leading to large swathes of coral turning white.

The scientists took multiple measurements of individual clownfish coping with the heat.

They found the tiny fish didn't just lose weight but got shorter by several millimetres. And it wasn't a one-off - 75% of fish shrunk at least once during the heatwave.

Clownfish swimming on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia

Dr Rueger explained: "It's not just them going on a diet and losing lots of weight, but they're actively changing their size and making themselves into a smaller individual that needs less food and is more efficient with oxygen."

The fish may be absorbing fat and bone, as has been seen in other animals, such as marine iguanas, although this needs to be confirmed through laboratory studies.

Dr Rueger joked that a little bit of movie rewriting might be necessary, with a new chapter ahead for Nemo.

"The movie told a really good story, but the next chapter of the story surely is, how does Nemo deal with ongoing environmental change?" she told BBC News.

Mushroom soft coral on a reef in Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean

Global warming is a big challenge for warm-blooded animals, which must maintain a constant body temperature to prevent their bodies from overheating.

Animals are responding in various ways: moving to cooler areas or higher ground, changing the timing of key life events such as breeding and migration, or switching their body size.

The research is published in the journal, Science Advances.

Friday, May 17, 2024

Martianization - Fatal heat waves are testing India's ability to protect 1.4 billion people


 Photo: Bloomberg

Attempts in Kolkata and across India to improve resilience to extreme heat have often been equally ill-conceived, despite a death toll estimated at more than 24,000 since 1992


By Rajesh Kumar Singh  

In scorching heat on a busy Kolkata street last month, commuters sought refuge inside a glass-walled bus shelter where two air conditioners churned around stifling air. Those inside were visibly sweating, dabbing at their foreheads in sauna-like temperatures that were scarcely cooler than out in the open. 

Local authorities initially had plans to install as many as 300 of the cooled cabins under efforts to improve protections from a heat season that typically runs from April until the monsoon hits the subcontinent in June. There are currently only a handful in operation, and some have been stripped of their AC units, leaving any users sweltering.

 


“It doesn’t work,” Firhad Hakim, mayor of the city of 15 million in India’s eastern state of West Bengal, said on a searing afternoon when temperatures topped 40C. “You feel suffocated.”
Attempts in Kolkata and across India to improve resilience to extreme heat have often been equally ill-conceived, despite a death toll estimated at more than 24,000 since 1992. Inconsistent or incomplete planning, a lack of funding, and the failure to make timely preparations to shield a population of 1.4 billion are leaving communities vulnerable as periods of extreme temperatures become more frequent, longer in duration and affect a wider sweep of the country.
 
 
Kolkata, with its hot, humid climate and proximity to the Bay of Bengal, is particularly vulnerable to temperature and rainfall extremes, and ranked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as among the global locations that are most at risk. 
An increase in average global temperatures of 2C could mean the city would experience the equivalent of its record 2015 heat waves every year, according to the IPCC. High humidity can compound the impacts, as it limits the human body’s ability to regulate its temperature.
Even so, the city — one of India's largest urban centers — still lacks a formal strategy to handle heat waves.
 
2015 - 2024
 

 
Several regions across India will see as many as 11 heat wave days this month compared to 3 in a typical year, while maximum temperatures in recent weeks have already touched 47.2C in the nation’s east, according to the India Meteorological Department. Those extremes come amid a national election during which high temperatures are being cited as among factors for lower voter turnout.
At SSKM Hospital, one of Kolkata’s busiest, a waiting area teemed last month with people sheltering under colorful umbrellas and thronging a coin-operated water dispenser to refill empty bottles. A weary line snaked back from a government-run kiosk selling a subsidised lunch of rice, lentils, boiled potato and eggs served on foil plates.
 

 
“High temperatures can cause heat stroke, skin rashes, cramps and dehydration,” said Niladri Sarkar, professor of medicine at the hospital. “Some of these can turn fatal if not attended to on time, especially for people that have pre-existing conditions.” Extreme heat has an outsized impact on poorer residents, who are often malnourished, lack access to clean drinking water and have jobs that require outdoor work, he said.
Elsewhere in the city, tea sellers sweltered by simmering coal-fired ovens, construction workers toiled under a blistering midday sun, and voters attending rallies for the ongoing national elections draped handkerchiefs across their faces in an effort to stay cool. Kolkata’s state government in April advised some schools to shutter for an early summer vacation to avoid the heat.
 
 Since 2013, states, districts and cities are estimated to have drafted more than 100 heat action plans, intended to improve their ability to mitigate the effects of extreme temperatures. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government set out guidelines eight years ago to accelerate adoption of the policies, and a January meeting of the National Disaster Management Authority pledged to do more to strengthen preparedness.
 

 
The absence of such planning in Kolkata has also meant a failure to intervene in trends that have made the city more susceptible.
Almost a third of the city’s green cover was lost during the decade through 2021, according to an Indian government survey. Other cities including Mumbai and Bangalore have experienced similar issues. That’s combined with a decline in local water bodies and a construction boom to deliver an urban heat island effect, according to Saira Shah Halim, a parliamentary candidate in the Kolkata Dakshin electoral district in the city’s south. “What we’re seeing today is a result of this destruction,” she said.
 
 
Hakim, the city’s mayor, disputes the idea that Kolkata’s preparations have lagged, arguing recent extreme weather has confounded local authorities. “Such a kind of heat wave is new to us, we’re not used to it,” he said. “We’re locked with elections right now. Once the elections are over, we’ll sit with experts to work on a heat action plan.”
Local authorities are currently ensuring adequate water supplies, and have put paramedics on stand-by to handle heat-induced illnesses, Hakim said. 
Focusing on crisis management, rather than on better preparedness, is at the root of the country’s failings, according to Nairwita Bandyopadhyay, a Kolkata-based climatologist and geographer. “Sadly the approach is to wait and watch until the hazard turns into a disaster,” she said.
 
 
Even cities and states that already have heat action plans have struggled to make progress in implementing recommendations, the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research said in a report last year reviewing 37 of the documents. 
Most policies don’t adequately reflect local conditions, they often lack detail on how action should be funded and typically don’t set out a source of legal authority, according to the report.
As many as 9 people have already died as a result of heat extremes this year, according to the meteorological department, though the figure is likely to significantly underestimate the actual total. That follows about 110 fatalities during severe heat waves during April and June last year, the World Meteorological Organization said last month.
 
 
Even so, the handling of extreme heat has failed to become a “political lightning rod that can stir governments into action,” said Aditya Valiathan Pillai, among authors of the CPR study and now a fellow at New Delhi-based Sustainable Futures Collaborative.
Modi's government has often moved to contain criticism of its policies, and there is also the question of unreliable data. “When deaths occur, one is not sure whether it was directly caused by heat, or whether heat exacerbated an existing condition,” Pillai said. 
In 2022, health ministry data showed 33 people died as a result of heat waves, while the National Crime Records Bureau – another agency that tracks mortality statistics – reported 730 fatalities from heat stroke.
 

Those discrepancies raise questions about a claim by India’s government that its policies helped cut heat-related deaths from 2,040 in 2015 to 4 in 2020, after national bureaucrats took on more responsibility for disaster risk management.  
Local officials in Kolkata are now examining potential solutions and considering the addition of more trees, vertical gardens on building walls and the use of porous concrete, all of which can help combat urban heat. 
India’s election is also an opportunity to raise issues around poor preparations, according to Halim, a candidate for the Communist Party of India (Marxist), whose supporters carry bright red flags at campaign events scheduled for the early morning and after sundown to escape extreme temperatures.
“I’m mentioning it,” she said. “It’s become a very, very challenging campaign. The heat is just insufferable.”
 

Summer 2025 was hottest on record in UK, says Met Office. Unprecedented average temperature made about 70 times more likely by human-induced climate change, says agency

The water levels at Broomhead reservoir in South Yorkshire have been low this summer. Photograph: Richard McCarthy/PA by   Damien Gayle The...