Life and death in the heat. What it feels like when Earth's temperatures soar to record highs (2024)

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BENI MELLAL, Morocco (AP) — In the unrelenting heat of Morocco’s Middle Atlas, people were sleeping on rooftops. Hanna Ouhbour needed refuge too, but she was outside a hospital waiting for her diabetic cousin who was in a room without air conditioning.

On Wednesday, there were 21 heat-related deaths at Beni Mellal’s main hospital as temperatures spiked to 48.3 degrees (118.9 degrees Fahrenheit) in the region of 575,000 people, most lacking air conditioning.

“We don’t have money and we don’t have a choice,” said Ouhbour, a 31-year-old unemployed woman from Kasba Tadla, an even warmer city that some experts say is among the hottest on Earth.

“The majority of the deaths were among people suffering from chronic diseases and the elderly, as the high temperatures contributed to the deterioration of their health condition and led to their death,” Kamal Elyansli, the regional director of health, said in a statement.

This is life and death in the heat.

Life and death in the heat. What it feels like when Earth's temperatures soar to record highs (1)

As the warming Earth sizzled through a week with four of the hottest days ever measured, the world focused on cold, hard numbers that showed the average daily temperature for the entire planet.

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But the 17.16 degrees Celsius (62.8 degrees Fahrenheit) reading recorded on Monday doesn’t convey how oppressively sticky any one particular place became at the peak of sunshine and humidity. The thermometer doesn’t tell the story of warmth that just wouldn’t go away at night so people could sleep.

The records are about statistics, keeping score. But people don’t feel data. They feel the heat.

“We do not need any scientists to tell us what the temperature is outside as this is what our body tells us instantly,” said Humayun Saeed, a 35-year-old roadside fruit seller in Pakistan’s cultural capital of Lahore.

Saeed had to go to the hospital twice in June because of heat stroke.

“The situation is much better now, as it was not easy to work in May and June because of the heat wave, but I have been avoiding the morning walk,” Saeed said. “I may resume it in August when the temperature will go further down.”

The heat was making Delia, a 38-year-old pregnant woman standing outside a Bucharest, Romania, train station, feel even more uncomfortable. Daytime was so hot she was drowsy. With no air conditioning at night, she considered sleeping in her car like a friend had.

“I’ve really noticed a very big increase in temperatures. I think it was the same for everyone. I felt it even more because I am pregnant,” said Delia, who only provided her first name. “But I guess it wasn’t just me. Really everyone felt this.”

Life and death in the heat. What it feels like when Earth's temperatures soar to record highs (6)

Self-described weather nerd Karin Bumbaco was in her element, but then it became just a little too much when Seattle had day after day of much warmer than normal heat.

“I love science. I love the weather. I have since I was a little kid,” said Bumbaco, the deputy state climatologist for Washington. “It’s sort of fun to see daily records get broken. ... But in recent years just living through it and actually feeling the heat has become just more miserable on a day-to-day basis.”

“Like this recent stretch we’ve had. I wasn’t sleeping very well. I don’t have AC at my home,” Bumbaco said. “I was watching the thermostat every morning be a little warmer than the previous warm morning. It was just building up the heat in the house and I just couldn’t wait for it to be over.”

For climate scientists around the world, what had been an academic exercise about climate change literally hit home.

“I’ve been analyzing these numbers from the cool of my office, but the heat has started to affect me as well, causing sleepless nights due to warmer urban temperatures,” said Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, Maharashtra, which normally has a relatively mild climate.

Life and death in the heat. What it feels like when Earth's temperatures soar to record highs (7)

“My children return home from school during the peak hours exhausted,” Koll said. “Last month one of my colleagues’ mother died from heat stroke in north India.”

Philip Mote, a climate scientist and dean of the graduate school at Oregon State University, had moved in junior high to California’s Central Valley and its triple digit summer heat.

“I pretty quickly figured I didn’t like a hot dry climate,” Mote said. “And that’s why I moved to the Northwest.”

For decades, Mote worked on climate issues from the comfort of Oregon, where people feared that with global warming the Northwest “would be the last nice place to live in the U.S. and everybody would move here and we’d have overpopulation.”

But the region was hit by nasty fires in 2020 and a deadly heat wave in 2021, causing some people to flee what was supposed to be a climate haven.

Life and death in the heat. What it feels like when Earth's temperatures soar to record highs (8)

In the second week of July, the temperature hit 104 degrees (40 Celsius). As a member of a masters’ rowing club, Mote practices on the water Tuesdays and Thursday evenings, but this week they decided to just float down the river in tubes.

In Boise, Idaho, tubing in the heat that has hovered between 99 and 108 degrees Fahrenheit (37 to 42 degrees Celsius) for 17 days has become so popular there’s a 30-minute to an hour wait to get into the water, said John Tullius, general manager for Boise River Raft & Tube.

“I think it’s been record numbers these last 10 days in a row,” Tullius said, adding that he worries about his outdoor workers, especially the physical toll on those who pick up rafts at the end of the trek.

He erected special shade structure for them, added more workers to ease the load and urges them to hydrate.

In Denver’s City Park, the swan-shaped pedal boat rental shop isn’t that busy because it’s beastly hot outside and those brave souls who do go out have to sit on hot fiberglass seats.

There’s not much shade for the workers, “but we do hide in our little shack,” said employee Dominic Prado, 23. “We also have a very strong fan in there that I like to raise my shirt over it just to cool down.”

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Borenstein reported from Washington, Metz from Beni Mellal, Morocco. Munir Ahmed in Lahore, Pakistan, Nicolae Dumitrache in Bucharest, Romania, Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Brittany Peterson in Denver contributed to this report.

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Follow Seth Borenstein and Sam Metz on X at @borenbears and @metzsam.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Life and death in the heat. What it feels like when Earth's temperatures soar to record highs (2024)

FAQs

How did the temperature affects life on Earth? ›

For example, as the ocean warms, less carbon dioxide will be absorbed by the ocean. Water oxygen levels, as warm water holds less oxygen than cold water. Thus, global warming reduces oxygen in the ocean, lakes, rivers and streams, which can lead to changes in species populations. The frequency and intensity of fires.

What is the hottest feels like temperature ever recorded on Earth? ›

The heat index measures what a temperature feels like, taking into account humidity. The actual maximum temperature in the city was 42 ºC on Monday, the Alerta Rio weather system said.

What is death by heat? ›

When people are exposed to extreme heat, they can suffer from potentially deadly illnesses, such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Hot temperatures can also contribute to deaths from heart attacks, strokes, and other forms of cardiovascular disease.

What happens to the body to cause death or illness during a heatwave? ›

Heat-related illnesses, like heat exhaustion or heat stroke, happen when the body is not able to properly cool itself. While the body normally cools itself by sweating, during extreme heat, this might not be enough. In these cases, a person's body temperature rises faster than it can cool itself down.

How do rising temperatures affect humans? ›

Climate change increases the risk of illness through increasing temperature, more frequent heavy rains and runoff, and the effects of storms. Health impacts may include gastrointestinal illness like diarrhea, effects on the body's nervous and respiratory systems, or liver and kidney damage.

What happens to humans in hot weather? ›

The body's inability to regulate internal temperature and eliminate heat gain in such conditions increases the risk of heat exhaustion and heatstroke. The strain put on the body as it tries to cool itself also stresses the heart and kidneys.

What is the highest temperature a human can survive? ›

Externally, the upper limit of the human body's thermoneutral zone—the ambient temperature range in which the body can maintain effectively maintain its temperature and equilibrium—likely falls somewhere between 104 and 122 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a 2021 study published in Physiology Report.

What is the hottest day of the year in 2024? ›

Until now, the hottest day of 2024 was 19 July, when temperatures reached 31.9C in central London. The UK has seen its hottest day of the year so far after a temperature of 34.8C (94.6F) was recorded in Cambridge, the Met Office has said.

Could life survive heat death? ›

This bleak idea is known as the “heat death hypothesis,” and the prophecy foretells a future where all pattern and organization has ceased to be. In this cosmological model, everything must come to an end. There is simply no possibility for continual existence.

How long will heat death last? ›

Time frame for heat death

Some large black holes in the universe are predicted to continue to grow up to perhaps 1014 M during the collapse of superclusters of galaxies. Even these would evaporate over a timescale of up to 10106 years.

What month has the most deaths? ›

On average, January is America's deadliest month, according to our analysis of data on 66.8 million deaths going all the way back to 1999 collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other lethal months come later in winter — February and March — than Schwede guessed.

What body temperature is too hot for humans? ›

As a follow-up study of a 2021 investigation , researchers at the University of Roehampton in England conducted a second set of experiments to investigate the upper limit of the thermoneutral zone. They found that the thermoneutral zone's upper limit likely lies between 40℃ (104F) and 50℃ (122F).

What temperature is too hot for the elderly? ›

When the temperature climbs above 80°F, older adults need to be proactive and take precautions to avoid ailments due to excessive heat.

What kills more people, heat or cold? ›

In the Global Burden of Disease study, cold-related deaths were around four times higher than heat-related ones. The study that estimates that 7.7% of deaths were attributed to temperature found that 7.3% were from cold temperatures; 0.4% were from heat.

How does temperature influence life? ›

Temperature affects the physiology of living things as well as the density and state of water. It exerts an important influence on living organisms because few can survive at temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F) due to metabolic constraints. It is also rare for them to survive at temperatures exceeding 45 °C (113 °F).

How does climate affect life on Earth? ›

Sea levels are rising and oceans are becoming warmer. Longer, more intense droughts threaten crops, wildlife and freshwater supplies. From polar bears in the Arctic to marine turtles off the coast of Africa, our planet's diversity of life is at risk from the changing climate.

How did the heat affect the people on the Earth? ›

If people do not find a way to cool down within hours, it can lead to heat exhaustion, heat stroke and strain on the cardiovascular system that can lead to heart attacks in vulnerable people.”

How does temperature affect Earth's climate? ›

That extra heat is driving regional and seasonal temperature extremes, reducing snow cover and sea ice, intensifying heavy rainfall, and changing habitat ranges for plants and animals—expanding some and shrinking others.

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