Climate change is making giant heat waves creep more slowly around the world

Climate change is making giant heat waves creep more slowly around the world

Climate change is making giant heatwaves creep more slowly across the globe, causing more people to bake for longer as temperatures rise over larger areas, a new study finds.

Since 1979, global heat waves have moved 20% slower — meaning more people stay hot longer — and they occur 67% more often, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances.

The study found that the highest temperatures in heat waves are warmer than they were 40 years ago and that the area under the heat dome is larger.

Studies have shown that heatwaves are getting worse before, but this one is more extensive and focuses more heavily not just on temperature and area, but also on how long heat lasts and how it travels across continents, said study co-authors and climate scientists Wei Zhang of Utah. . State University and Gabriel Lau of Princeton University.

The study said that from 1979 to 1983, global heat waves lasted eight days on average, but by 2016 to 2020, this duration had risen to 12 days.