DECRYPTION – A “wet bulb” of 35°C is generally considered to be deadly within hours. According to recent studies, this limit could be lower.
The cold still kills much more than the hot: nearly 4.6 million deaths each year in the world for the first, 490,000 for the second, according to a study published in July in the Lancet Planetary Health . But as global warming takes its toll, the relationship could reverse, even in temperate countries, and heat kills more and more. But not just any heat…
50°C measured in Pakistan, 47°C in India… The figures are impressive, but not exceptional. And in themselves, they do not say much about the dangerousness of the observed heat waves. Because there is a lack of essential data, that of the humidity of the air. Gold “it only takes a slight change in humidity for it to become a disasterexplains the Pr Laurent Grelot, physiologist at the University of Aix-Marseille. At 36°C ambient temperature and 30% humidity, the thermal stress for the organism is the same as at 28°C and 85% humidity.”
Read alsoIndia helpless in the face of a historic heat wave
Explanations: to keep…
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