The rise of the truly cruel summer
dangerous levels of heat. This year is no exception—indeed, it carries the trend further. In Saudi Arabia more than 1,300 pilgrims died during the hajj , the pilgrimage to Mecca, as temperatures exceeded 50°C.
India’s capital, Delhi, endured 40 days above 40°C between May and June. And in Mexico scores of howler monkeys have been falling dead from the trees with heatstroke. That this summer looks set to be punishing should not be a surprise.
Global average temperatures have broken records for every month of the past year. And the hot El Niño phase of the oscillating system of Pacific currents and winds called ENSO only recently ended. But it would be wrong to see this summer as exceptional in today’s world.
Stripping out year-to-year variability, the planet is now about 1.2°C warmer than it was in the 19th century. And small-sounding shifts in the average temperature have a disproportionate effect on what goes on at the extremes. Already in many places the number of days in which people around the world are exposed to “very strong" or “extreme" heat stress—which can pose a threat to life—is alarmingly high (see map).
That brings enormous burdens. Heatwaves are among the deadliest weather and climate disasters globally, according to the UN and the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. Firm numbers are hard to come by, but one analysis published in the Lancet in 2021 estimated that heat contributed to an annual average of 489,000 deaths globally between 2000 and 2019.
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