Southeast Asia’s Deadly Heat Wave in April Was 45x More Likely Due to Climate Change, Study Finds

A new World Weather Attribution (WWA) study has found that the sweltering late-April heat wave across Southeast Asia and the Middle East was 45 times more likely due to human-caused climate change.

For many days, temperatures above 104 degrees Fahrenheit scorched large portions of the continent, from Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Israel to Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand.

“From Gaza to Delhi to Manila, people suffered and died when April temperatures soared in Asia,” said Dr. Friederike Otto, a member of the WWA study team and a senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment in London, as The Guardian reported. “The additional heat, driven by emissions from oil, gas and coal, is resulting in death for many people.”

The study said global heating increased temperatures by nearly two degrees Celsius in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel. In the Philippines, thousands of schools were shuttered amid soaring temperatures.

“In terms of intensity, we estimate that a heatwave such as this one in West Asia is today about 1.7°C warmer than it would have been without the burning of fossil fuels. In the Philippines the intensity increase due to human-induced climate change is about 1.2°C,” WWA said.

In India, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Bangladesh, Thailand and Cambodia, temperatures reached 114.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Climate change is an absolute gamechanger when it comes to extreme heat,” Otto said.

The heat wave was especially hard for outdoor workers and those living in informal housing and refugee camps.

“Heat impacts certain groups like construction workers, transport drivers, farmers, fishermen etc. disproportionately. It both impacts their livelihoods and causes a reduction in income, and results in personal health risks,” WWA said. “The heatwave added pressure to the many challenges already faced by people in refugee camps and conflict zones, such as water shortages, difficulties to access medicines and poor living conditions for the large population that lives in makeshift tents that trap heat. With limited institutional support and options to adapt, the heat increases health risks and hardship.”

The research team combined climate models and weather data to compare how likely heat waves would be in the current climate and in one without human-caused global heating.

They found that El Niño had little effect on a higher chance of heat waves.

“Heatwaves are arguably the deadliest type of extreme weather event and while the death toll is often underreported, hundreds of deaths have been reported already in most of the affected countries, including Palestine, Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and the Philippines,” WWA said. “The heat also had a large impact on agriculture, causing crop damage and reduced yields, as well as on education, with holidays having to be extended and schools closed in several countries, affecting millions of students.”

The team said South Asia’s heat is becoming more frequent during the pre-monsoon season.

They examined how human-caused climate change affected the intensity and likelihood of the 15-day heat wave in the Philippines and the three-day West Asia.

“The observational data for the whole month of April confirmed that the role of climate change is likely of similar magnitude to the heatwaves studied in 2022 and 2023, and the results of a full attribution analysis would not be significantly different,” WWA said.

In Gaza, the hot temperatures made living conditions more dire for 1.7 million displaced people.

The study said that, if the planet reaches warming of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the probability of extreme heat rises significantly.

“If the world warms to 2°C above pre-industrial global mean temperatures, in both regions the likelihood of the extreme heat would increase further, by a factor of 2 in West Asia and 5 over the Philippines, while the temperatures will become another 1°C hotter in West Asia and 0.7°C hotter in the Philippines,” WWA said.

The study’s findings in South Asia were based on observations.

“Similarly to what we found in previous studies, we observe a strong climate change signal in the 2024 April mean temperature. We find that these extreme temperatures are now about 45 times more likely and 0.85ºC hotter. These results align with our previous studies, where we found that climate change made the extreme heat about 30 times more likely and 1ºC hotter,” WWA explained.

The findings suggest that strategies and action plans to combat existing heat waves face challenges due to rapidly growing cities, exposed populations, an increase in informal settlements, a rise in energy demands and a reduction of green spaces.

“While many cities have been implementing solutions like cool roofs, nature based infrastructure design, and adherence to climate risk informed building codes, there is limited focus on retrofitting and upgrading of existing buildings and settlements, with infrastructure deficits (e.g. asbestos roofs), to make them more liveable,” WWA emphasized. “Some countries such as India have comprehensive heat action plans in place, yet to protect some of the most vulnerable people, these must be expanded with mandatory regulations, such as workplace interventions for all workers to address heat stress.”