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By 2070 the summer may last for eight months in India

Prolonged heat-wave conditions–in other words, a summer lasting up to eight months–could be the new norm by the 2070s for the Gangetic plains, if greenhouse-gas emissions are not cut to limit the global temperature increase to 2°C, according to a new study in the journal  Environmental Research Letters.

The world is getting not only hotter but also more humid. The combined scientific measure of heat and humidity is called “wet-bulb temperature”, which hardly ever crossed 32°C between 1985 and 2005. The nature of such heat waves has since changed because of rapidly growing greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating climate change.

Using a suite of 18 climate models, two emissions scenarios, and five population-growth scenarios, Ethan Coffel, 27, a final year doctoral student at Columbia University, and two other scientists, also estimated the possibility of the wet-bulb temperature approaching or exceeding 35°C, the theoretical human heat tolerance limit by then.

The poor, those with outdoor jobs, cardiovascular and respiratory conditions are likely to be the most vulnerable. High temperatures could even give rise to new diseases–as already evident in part of South America–and threaten agriculture, which currently employs 228 millionpeople or 48.8% of India’s working population.

What could exacerbate the situation is the finding that in some of those areas, by then, the dry bulb temperature–a measure of air temperature alone–is expected to hit the average of the single hottest temperature each year between 1985 and 2005, anywhere between 50 and 125 times annually, as against once per year currently.

“Climate change is a problem that’s both scientifically interesting and societally urgent,” said Coffel. “What makes it more interesting for me is weather and physics, my favourite subjects, come together in climate science.”

Coffel has a BA in computer science & integrated science from Northwestern University, USA, an MA in atmospheric science from Columbia University, USA, and expects to receive his doctoral degree in atmospheric science also from Columbia University in May 2018.