PHOENIX.- Heat waves, like the one that engulfed parts of the southern and north-central United States and killed more than a dozen people, are becoming more common, experts have warned, saying extreme weather events, which charge more lives than hurricanes and tornadoes will be on the rise.
A heat dome that killed 13 people in Texas and another in Louisiana, spiking air conditioners and straining the power grid, was moving east on Friday and is expected to cover states including Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia for the weekend. Heat index levels of up to 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius) were forecast in parts of Florida over the next few days.
Eleven of the heat-related deaths in Texas occurred in Webb County, which includes the border city of Laredo. The dead were between the ages of 60 and 80 and many had other health conditions, according to the county medical examiner. The other two people killed were visitors from Florida who died while hiking in extreme heat in Big Bend National Park in Texas.
Scientists and medical experts say such deaths from extreme heat will continue to rise in the United States each summer if more steps are not taken to combat climate change, which has raised temperatures, making people especially vulnerable in areas They are not used to such high temperatures.
“Here in Boston we prepare for snow storms. Now we have to learn to prepare for the heat,” lamented Gaurab Basu, director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health.
Planting more trees to increase shade in cities and investing in green technology such as heat pumps to cool and heat homes could help, Basu added.
Extreme heat is already the deadliest of all weather events in the United States, including hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and floods.
“Heat waves are the deadliest because they affect very large areas and can last for days or weeks,” said Joellen Russell, a climate scientist who teaches at the University of Arizona in Tucson and is currently a Fulbright scholar in Wellington, New Zealand. “They take people by surprise.”
FUENTE: With information from AP
