India and Pakistan have been sweltering under an unprecedented heatwave, the severity of which scientists attribute to climate change. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we explore how much worse heatwaves in the region could get and how farmers can prepare.

Since March, people in India and Pakistan have faced near continuous heat well above 40℃. Nearly a hundred people are estimated to have died from the extreme heat, which is also affecting harvests, causing forest fires and power blackouts. Delhi recorded a record high temperature of 49.2℃ in mid May, and the mercury reached 51℃ in Jacobabad, a city in southeastern Pakistan.

What’s also made this heatwave so remarkable is when it started and how long it’s lasted. Heatwaves in May are common as the region approaches the monsoon season, but this one started in March and has persisted for three months with few breaks. “These heatwaves are hotter than they usually are in this region at this time of year,” explains Andrew King, a senior lecturer in climate science at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

“In general in this region, we’re seeing temperatures rising, but if we look at the most extreme heatwave temperatures, we haven’t seen an increase up until now. It’s more that the heat waves have become a bit more frequent,” says King. However, he says climate models project heatwaves in the region will become both hotter, and more frequent.

But how do you measure how extreme a heatwave actually is for a particular region? Alan Kennedy Asser, a research associate in climate science at the University of Bristol in the UK and his colleagues have found a way to do just that. They recently published a study analysing the most extreme heatwaves in the world over the past 60 years. Crucially, they did this by calculating how much each heatwave varied from the recent average for that region.

Read more - https://theconversation.com/india-and-pakistans-heatwave-is-a-sign-of-worse-to-come-podcast-183832