[Danger sign]
[People taking photos near salt flat and sign reading “Extreme Heat Danger”]
[People cooling off under mist]
[Sign displaying the temperature, 35 degrees Celsius]
[Laborer pulling a heavily loaded handcart]
[NGO worker spraying water on commuters]
[Patients being treated at the emergency ward of Civil Hospital Karachi]
Josh Foster (interview): “So with just two degrees Celsius warming, what we showed that even for young, healthy adults, an area about the landmass of the US would actually become uninhabitable from a heat stress point of view. But when we extend that to elderly individuals who have a lower thermoregulatory capacity to control their body temperature, that extended to over a third of the landmass with just two degrees Celsius of warming. So this is some quite alarming data really.”
[Heatstroke relief camp, officials providing cold water, people drinking water]
[Tub of cold water]
[Man pouring water over his face]
[Man digging for water and dead livestock]
[Dead livestock, birds eating livestock]
Josh Foster (interview): “These types of issues aren’t necessarily centred on their own quite specific areas, because there are there are some areas like Bangladesh and Pakistan that are much more vulnerable to high levels of humid heat. But then we also have to focus on drier climates, so the Sahara, some parts of Western Europe which are more prone to extreme levels of dry heating.”
[Fan]
[82-year-old woman trying to cool down at her home in downtown Veracruz]
Josh Foster (interview): “The cells and the tissues in your body can’t survive being at a core temperature of around 41.5°C. If they’re exposed to those kinds of temperatures, we start to see issues with proteins and enzymes denaturing and we see decreases in just normal cellular function. So we see cell death occurring at those types of temperatures that they’re exposed to, which would then lead to multiple organ failure.”
[People affected by drought]
[Cattle carcasses]
Josh Foster (interview): “I think that if we crossed these boundaries, it would result in very widespread health issues and potentially mass migration as well. What we really don’t know is the level of adaptation that takes place in some of these areas. So as to the lead author on the paper, Tom Matthews, is actually now doing fieldwork in Pakistan to try and understand does the body start to adapt to these levels of heat stress, which we just don’t see in Western regions, or are they making adaptations in the built environment as well?”
[Tourist in Seville using fans]
[Woman drinking water]
[Public thermometer showing temperature at 42 Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit)]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.