NEW DELHI: Climate change at least doubled the chances of heat waves in Uttar Pradesh which swept through the state recently, causing multiple hospitalisations, an analysis conducted using a metric called the Climate Shift Index (CSI) shows.
Developed by Climate Central, an independent US-based group of scientists and communicators, CSI is a tool that quantifies the contribution of climate change to daily temperatures.
Sixty-eight patients died at the district hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia in five days till Monday amid a punishing heat waves in the region.
Officials, however, said only two people died due to heat stroke. According to media reports, the neighbouring Deoria district also saw deaths amid extreme heat.
Researchers at Climate Central conducted the analysis using CSI, which measures how often and how much temperatures have shifted from the historical average. A higher index indicates more dramatic change compared to the past.
CSI levels above one indicate climate change. Levels between two and five mean that climate change made those temperatures between two to five times more likely.
The analysis shows that certain parts of Uttar Pradesh reached CSI levels of three, indicating temperatures that have become at least three times more likely due to climate change.
New analysis shows that a three-day extreme heat event over Uttar Pradesh from June 14-16 was made at least two times more likely by human-caused climate change, researchers at Climate Central said.
According to them, extreme temperatures coupled with high humidity contributed to the severity of the event.
“We see again and again that climate change dramatically increases the frequency and intensity of heat waves, one of the deadliest weather events that exist.”
The most recent World Weather Attribution (WWA) study has shown that this has been recognised in India, but the implementation of heat action plans is slow.
“It needs to be an absolute priority adaptation action everywhere,” said Friederike Otto, the co-lead of WWA, a panel of international experts that study the role of climate change in extreme weather events.