By Peter Hannam for the Sydney Morning Herald.
Washington: If carbon dioxide emissions continue at their current pace, by the end of century parts of the Persian Gulf will sometimes be just too hot for the human body to tolerate, a new study says.
How hot? The heat index – which combines heat and humidity – may hit 74 to 77 degrees Celsius for at least six hours, according to numerous computer simulations in the new study. That’s so hot that the human body can’t get rid of heat. The elderly and ill are hurt most by current heatwaves, but the future is expected to be so hot that healthy, fit people would be endangered, health experts say.
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“You can go to a wet sauna and put the temperature up to 35 [degrees Celsius] or so. You can bear it for a while, now think of that at an extended exposure” of six or more hours, study co-author Elfatih Eltahir, an MIT environmental engineering professor, said.