Antinuclear

Heatwaves are killers – and they are getting worse

Heatwaves are more deadly than bushfires and they’re going to get worse, Canberra Times, Karl Kruszelnicki , 13 Dec 16 In 2009, the terrible Black Saturday bushfires killed 173 people. What most Australians don’t realise is that the crippling heat around the horrendous bushfires killed 374 people.

In the European heatwave of 2003, 50,000-70,000 people died between June and August. The Russian heatwave of 2010 killed about 55,000 people.

A bushfire leaves obvious signs of the cause of death (burns, blisters, etc), but a heatwave does not. Deaths from heatwaves are revealed indirectly. In Victoria in 2009, the first sign that the heatwaves were killing people was the morgues filling up. The unexpected extra corpses had to be stored in universities, mortuaries, funeral parlours and the like.

There are many definitions of a heatwave. The one from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) is widely accepted. According to the WMO, a heatwave happens when you have five days in a row, each with a daily maximum temperature five-or-more degrees higher than the average maximum temperature……..

The science is quite clear that climate change (which has been accepted as real since in 1988, and yes, we caused it) is worsening heatwaves. Dr Thomas Knutson and colleagues from the US Geophysical Fluids Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton University wrote a paper showing that (with a very high degree of confidence) climate change caused the extreme heat Australia experienced in 2013.

In Australia, heatwaves now arrive earlier, are hotter, and last longer……http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/heatwaves-are-more-deadly-than-bushfires-and-theyre-going-to-get-worse-20161212-gt9fyl.html

December 14, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming