India has logged the hottest spring on record in a century.
Extreme heat is rolling through South Asia as climate change brings summer weather early. Temperatures are already pushing past 120°F in some regions.
The current heat waves are severe—this year, India recorded its hottest March and April in more than a century. Some schools have shut down early, hospitals are on alert, and at least“Before human activities increased global temperatures, we would have seen the heat that hit India earlier this month around once in 50 years,” Mariam Zachariah, who researches water and climate at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, told.
Many in the region have no respite. Only a fraction of people in South Asia have access to air conditioning; as of 2019,of Indian households had AC. Even so, use of cooling technology has been skyrocketing—so much so that the Indian states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh are imposing power cuts on factories to cut down on energy consumption. In the midst of the heat waves, India is also facing a potential energy crisis as reserves of coal, their main source of electricity, run thin.
In addition to the heatwaves, there has also been a lack of rainfall this season, stressing many regions’ water supply. And the drought will likely continue until the annual monsoon rains later in the summer. The extreme heat is also, forecasting a disappointing harvest this year that will hurt local farmers as well as the region’s economy at large.
The intense heat strained the regions’ Muslim populations, who were fasting for Ramadan during the month of April. The Indian state of Bihar advised its people to not leave their homes after midday, causing economic harm to local businesses. “People have been staying inside their house in [the] day time.
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