More great climate news: A new study in the journal Nature Climate Change finds approximately 30 percent of the global population is exposed to lethal heatwaves at least 20 days a year, and this danger will grow exponentially with climate change. The study defines “lethal” as a combined measure of surface air temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation that has caused death in the past.Even with “drastic” emission reductions, the study’s authors expect that about 48 percent of people in the world will face killer heat by the year 2100. And the figure jumps to about 74 percent if emissions keep climbing. Countries along the equator will be hardest-hit in all scenarios.More dispatches on global climate change:
- At least 50 flights have been cancelled at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix because at 118 degrees, it’s too hot for smaller plans to operate.
- According to Nature Plants, climate change might spoil up to 59 percent of current coffee-growing areas in Ethiopia.
- The New York Times reports that Turbat, Pakistan, experienced what might be the highest temperature ever recorded in Asia, at a reported 129.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Scientists at Harvard think a one-degree Celsius temperature increase could cause 110 million nights of insufficient sleep in the U.S.
- Even with sea-level rise, Tulane geologists have found that the Louisiana coast is sinking nearly twice as fast as predictions from a few years ago.
- Even though the U.S. is backing out of the Paris Climate Accord, a U.N. review found that America leads the world in the number of cases involving climate change litigation, with three times as many pending cases as the rest of the world combined.