Symbolic picture
– Photo : Amar Ujala
Expansion
Environmentalist Sunita Narain, director general of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), said the intense heat wave across large parts of India is a result of a naturally occurring El Niño phenomenon, an abnormally warming sea surface in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, and climate change.
Narayan said, no one is ready for this. To deal with these conditions, she has emphasized the need for heat index and a complete change in the designs of modern cities. Sunita Narayan said that 2023 was the hottest year on record globally. We have broken every record with temperatures above 40 degrees in the last 45 days. This is climate change. It has become even more complicated this year (2023-24) with El Nino decreasing. This means that we really need to get our work together. We need to ensure that vulnerable communities are less affected.
Need to develop a heat index
Narayan stressed the need to develop a heat index. This heat index measures how the human body feels when relative humidity is combined with air temperature. He said that we need a heat index just like the Air Quality Index on our phones. Heatwaves are turning modern glass buildings into furnaces, causing overheating of occupants and new architectural science is desperately needed to deal with this.