Average temperatures and heatwave frequency will keep rising in Pakistan, say researchers as the country has struggled to come to grips with soaring temperatures in recent weeks.
Average temperatures and heatwave frequency will keep rising in Pakistan, say researchers as the country has struggled to come to grips with soaring temperatures in recent weeks.
A team of international researchers, who say their study is the first to show the country’s heat-wave trajectory forecasts a 75 per cent increase in heat waves by 2030, a 189 per cent by 2060 and a 277 per cent increase by 2090. “This means the country will experience around 12 heat wave events annually by 2030, 20 such events by 2060 and 26 events by 2090,” says Wajid Nasim, lead author and associate professor at the department of environmental sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology.
The study, published this month (June) in Atmospheric Research, shows that Pakistan was hit by 126 heat waves of varying durations over the 1997‒2015 period for an average of seven heat waves per year. This year, at least 65 people have died in the capital Karachi, and temperatures in parts of the country have exceeded 40 degrees Celsius for weeks, reaching a record-breaking 50.2 degrees in April.
These extreme events will become more frequent, prolonged and intense, Wajid tells SciDev.Net.
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