I don't see humidity mentioned in the article, that's the real killer once the temperature gets up above body temperature. If humidity is high then evaporating water isn't going to effectively cool a person and the only way to survive is to get into air conditioning or other artificially low-temperature safe zones. Temperatures like this are more often seen in arid places, I dread the time something like this hits a major tropical urban area when it's humid. We could see megadeaths.
Only people with AC (or deep basements?) would be save... as long as they have electricity.
Makes me wonder what would happen in a mega city like Delhi, when the weather get's lethal. Will people storm places with AC or will they be apathetic (like starving people).
I hope we won't find out! But at least heat shelters will probably become normal.
Its a map of future heatstroke and kidney disease as humans sweat out all their water tryin to cool off. Probably a lot of human suffering and migration in the near future.
I've been using maps like these to figure out where its safe to live and also for retirement planning.
Death Valley, California, breaks the all-time world heat record for the second year in a row
If verified, the 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4°C) reading at the Furnace Creek Visitor’s Center on Friday, July 9, 2021, would be Earth’s highest reliably measured temperature.
There are a whole lot more people living in Delhi than Death Valley, though.
EDIT: According to this, the hottest temperature India has been recorded seeing prior to this was in 2016:
A temperature reading collected in Delhi, India's capital territory, may have broken national records as the country grapples with a blistering heat wave. The reading — 52.9 degrees Celsius or 126.1 degrees Fahrenheit — was preliminary and technically an outlier compared with others taken in Delhi on the same day, officials said. But, if confirmed, it would be the highest temperature ever registered anywhere in India.
The temperature reading came from a substation in Mungeshpur, a neighborhood in Delhi. Located in the northwest, India's capital territory — which includes its capital city, New Delhi — is home to almost 30 million people and covers about 600 square miles of land. The Indian Meteorological Department said in a news release that the reading out of Mungeshpur could be due to a sensor issue or some other error, and that it would examine the data and the sensor.
The difference is that the Delhi temperature is likely with significantly more humidity than the Death Valley one, even despite the fact that it's the drier part of the year in Delhi.
Yeah. Where I used to live, 28C was bang on perfect. My new part of the world which is more inland and dry, it felt like that at 43. I would never had known if someone hadn't mentioned "record heat".
I've been in 52 in dessert and it's more like an oven, much less like a sauna. It's "interesting". I've been in 48C in a humid climate and it the heat felt ois so, so, so much worse, most people wouldn't understand it unless experienced. It feels genuinely lethal and people definitely do die in their homes.
I have long since written myself off as likely dying in a fight over resources (food, clean water, medicine) with some yokel who still wouldn't believe in climate change. And people act confused when I say I have no motivation at work or hope for the future. Wild shit.
I'm sure you're not implying that it's their own fault, but just for others that might read your comment...
Smog in South East Asia is a complex problem. It's not as simple as Delhi people doing things to make it smoggy. For example, in a lot of places the smog is from burning the stubble left over from crops. It does drift across international borders, so the people living with it often are not culpable in any way.
Additionally, it tends to be seasonal, sort of November to February.
Suffice to say the current temperature spikes are unlikely to be caused by smog and even if they were it's not necessarily the fault of the good people of Delhi.
You do realise how cynical this is no? We are dying of the consequences of global warming to which the global South has contributed the least to, yet will suffer the most and can't afford to survive it because of centuries of colonial loot