Globally, 2019 was the second hottest year, concluding a record decade. The temperature rise, accompanied by a multiplication of extreme weather events linked to global warming, is in line with forecasts by climatologists. The year 2020 should not escape the phenomenon and could accentuate the health crisis.
Should we expect hot weather?
On May 24, the Yarol’in recorded 30.5 ° C, at latitude 67.13 ° N, beyond the polar circle… Yes, the heat is already there, in Siberia, at Canada, in India… Countries and communities must prepare now for a hot summer
, warned a European office of the World Health Organization (WHO).
2020 does not look different from the previous two years. It could even be worse depending on the region. In 2018, there was a surplus of 220 million vulnerable people over 65 exposed to heat waves, compared to the average for the period 1986-2005, noted the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Last year, Europe experienced two deadly heat waves in June and late July 2019. They led to catastrophic forest fires in Spain. In France, patent tests had been canceled, just before the new record of 46 ° C recorded on June 28.
Australia ushered in this hot year with the worst fires in its history : 10.7 million hectares (one sixth of French territory) and 10,000 houses gone up in smoke, hundreds of millions of dead animals, thirty deaths in humans …
Why are heat waves increasing?
We live in a warming world, warn climatologists since the 1980s. We are there, we can feel it. Greenhouse gas concentrations (record 416.08 parts per million on February 10, measured the American agency of Oceanic and atmospheric observation) cause an increase in the temperatures, with heat waves more and more frequent and intense. Heat waves have become a recurring challenge on all continents. It is more prevalent in cities, where buildings and bitumen amplify the effects of heat. Gold almost 70% of the world’s population is expected to be urban by 2050 and exposed to extreme heat “
, according to the WMO.
Is this likely to worsen the pandemic?
Yes, hence the alert system, taken on May 26 by the World Health Information Network on Heatwaves (the Global heat health information network, GHHIN, linked to the United Nations climate and health agencies). Municipal authorities and health care professionals are likely to face difficult choices, about how to strike a balance between preventing the spread of infection, while protecting people from the dangerously hot conditions in which they live.
, recalled Joy Shumake-Guillemot, coordinator of this network.
Experts from 25 countries have already made their recommendations. The heat wave worsens the health of Covid-19 patients, causes an additional influx of people affected by the effects of heat in already overcrowded hospitals and can also concentrate populations in cool places, promoting the spread of the virus.
What other consequences on populations?
All heat-related illnesses and deaths can be prevented, with prevention and adaptation of cities (air conditioning, hunting for heat islands, etc.)
, says Joy Shumake-Guillemot. This is the good news. Except for the fact that the world, especially in the West, is hardly prepared. Despite the 70,000 additional deaths in Europe during the heat wave of 2003.
Not ready either, the world of work. At the end of the heat wave of 2019, the International Labor Organization had calculated that global warming would result an equivalent loss of almost 2% of total working hours worldwide each year
. Either because it’s too hot to work, or because workers have to go slower. Do you want to be a mason in Rajasthan? It’s 50 ° C at the moment.
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