Parts of South Asia could be too hot to live in by end of century

If more isn't done to mitigate climate change, the number of people in South Asia who experience potentially deadly heat could rise by 60 per cent by the end of the century, new research shows.

The increased temperatures will be felt worldwide, but South Asia will bear the brunt of the impact because much of its massive population also lives in poverty,MIT professorElfatihEltahirtold CBC News during aSkypeinterview fromKhartoum, Sudan.

"The risk of the impacts of climate change in that region could be quite severe," he said of the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

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Eltahirand his research colleagues from MIT and Loyola Marymount Universityexamined weather modelling up to the year 2100 in two ways.

First, they looked at a "business as usual" model, where minimal changes are made to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the impact of climate change, andtemperatures increase at the current rate.

They also created a model based on "moderate mitigation," where more effort is made to reduce emissions.

Eltahirsays the business-as-usualmodel is the "most likely scenario" andanexample of the dire direction the world is headed, especially in South Asia.

'Tip of the iceberg'

In 2015, the region experienced a deadly heat wave that killedroughly 3,500 peoplein Pakistan and India over a few months.

"That was only the tip of the iceberg,"Eltahirsaid. "In the sense that much more severe heat waves are coming."

Eltahir'smodelling used wet bulb temperature, a scientific measurement that theU.S. National Weather Service says combines temperature, humidity, wind speed, sun angle and cloud cover to measure heat stress in direct sunlight. Eltahir said he and his colleagues chose the wet bulb measurementbecause temperature isn't the only element of weather that affects the human body.

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As an example,Eltahirsays the temperatures during the 2015 heat wavereached a wet bulb temperature of about 30 C.

He says the fatal point for healthy humans is a wet bulb temperature of 35 C for six hours, but "these are conditions that have not been observed anywhere."The highest wet bulb temperature recorded is approximately 31 or 32 C, he says.

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About 15 percent of the South Asian population getsexposed to those extreme temperatures of 31 or 32 C, but under the business-as-usualmodel that number would reach 75per cent by 2100, the study found. Four per cent of that population would see wet bulb temperatures of 35 C.

"This is a new territory we're moving into," Eltahir said.

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Under the moderate mitigationmodel, 55 per cent of the South Asian population, which also includesAfghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, would be exposed to wet bulb temperatures of 31 or 32 C.

"Because we think the most serious impact of climate change will be where people are poor, the magnitude of weather is going to be significantly more severe,"Eltahirsaid.

However, he saysthe moderate mitigationmodel showsthe impacts could be reducedif action is taken to reduce emissions.

Eltahirsays because the study looks at climate change's impact on a specific region instead of as a global concept it could get policy-makers to look at ways to increase development and still try toprotecttheir "most vulnerable population from the outcome of the most severe possibility of climate change."

"(This research shows) the kind of things that could happen if we keep going in this trajectory of no action related to climate change or minimal action."