New Delhi - It's still spring, but hundreds of millions of people in South and Southeast Asia have already had to deal with scorching heat. The summer heat has arrived early, setting records and even costing lives, and is expected to get much worse in May and June when summer actually begins.
By early May, severe heat waves were already responsible for nearly three dozen deaths in the vast region. Schools have been forced to close weeks before the summer holidays and vast amounts of new crops have withered on parched farmland.
Where the most dangerous heat is expected in the US this summer
Scientists warn of far-reaching consequences in some of the world's most populous regions, urging governments to take immediate action to prepare for the impacts of climate change and do everything possible to stem man-made warming to soften the earth.
What is happening, and where?
Several parts of India recorded maximum temperatures of more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit last month. On April 21, people in the eastern city of Bhagdora warmed as the mercury reached 114.8 degrees.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday issued a 'red alert' for the eastern and southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha, where temperatures have soared since mid-April. The IMD warned that the heatwave will get worse before it gets better.
At least two people died this weekend in the southern state of Kerala from suspected heat stroke. Two other deaths were attributed to heat in the eastern state of Odisha earlier in April.
The scorching temperatures hit India in the middle of winter ongoing six-week general election - in which almost a billion people are allowed to vote - making campaigning and voting difficult.
Authorities in neighboring Bangladesh had to close all schools twice in the past two weeks due to the heat wave, and temperatures soared to nearly 110 degrees on Monday.
Several areas in Myanmar have recorded record temperatures of around 115 degrees, with a much higher heat index. The heat index is a measure of what the temperature actually is feels such as taking into account humidity, wind speed and other factors.
Heatwave conditions have also been brutal in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, authorities closed thousands of schools as large parts of the country faced drought and temperatures of up to 48 degrees Celsius - unprecedented for the region in early April.
In Thailand, authorities have urged people to stay indoors if possible. This year, 30 deaths have already been attributed to heat stroke. In the capital Bangkok, authorities said the heat index reached an "extremely dangerous" 125.6 degrees on Thursday.
In Vietnam, where temperatures exceeded 111 degrees, the national weather agency warned of the risk of forest fires, dehydration and heat stroke.
"Thousands of records are being destroyed across Asia, in what is by far the most extreme event in world climate history." historian again Maximiliano Herrera said in a social media post last week.
What causes the extreme heat?
Scientists are divided over the impact of the ongoing El Niño weather phenomenon, but many believe the temporary warming of the central Pacific Ocean, which has changed global weather patterns for years, has made things much worse in South and Southeast Asia this summer made.
"I think it's a mix of El Niño, global warming and seasonality," Prof. Raghu Murtugudde, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai, told CBS News. "El Niño turns into La Niña. This is the time when maximum warming occurs towards the Indian Ocean. So all these things are basically adding steroids to the weather."
Murtugudde noted that the El Niño phenomenon already existed in March 2023, so last year's heat waves were also due to a combination of global warming, El Niño and the annual cycle, but he said this year was worse due to the transition to the La Niña pattern.
However, not all climate scientists agree on the impact of El Niño.
"We even saw heat waves last year and that was not attributed to El Niño," Prof. Krishna AchutaRao, a scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi's Center for Atmospheric Sciences, told CBS News.
Last year, More than a hundred people died in severe heat waves in India and Pakistan alone in April and May, again destroying crops and affecting millions of people.
"Like this year, last year's heat wave stretched from parts of India to Bangladesh and Myanmar, and all the way to Thailand. This year it went further east to the Philippines. So it's the same pattern," AchutaRao said. "I don't really believe El Niño is the cause."
However, most experts agree that climate change is one of the main causes of the brutal heat hitting Asia this spring, and scientists said last year that Climate change makes the chance of heat waves a hundred times greater.
AchutaRao, along with other scientists working with the organization World Weather Attribution, collected and analyzed data on last year's heat waves in the region and the dozens of natural disasters that accompanied them in Laos and Thailand. The team "concluded that [extreme weather] Such events would not have been possible without climate change."
"Climate change is exacerbating the frequency and severity of such events and is having profound consequences for societies, economies and, most importantly, human lives and the environment in which we live," Ko Barrett, Deputy Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization, said last month. .
In 2023, temperatures worldwide went through the roof warmest year ever recorded. The United Nations Weather and Climate Agency said Asia was warming at an especially rapid pace, causing extreme weather events such as floods, major storms and cyclones more frequent and dangerous.
The poor will suffer the most
Countries around the world have tried to manage the impact of extreme weather events through early warning systems and advisories, but Asia's large, poor populations will bear the brunt of the impact of the heat waves, Murtugudde told CBS News.
The heat is likely to continue to cause widespread damage to crops, further impacting the lives of farmers who have already faced increasing challenges in recent years - to the extent that hundreds of thousands organized massive protests in India to demand government help.
Many national governments are restricting outdoor activities in an effort to prevent deaths during extreme heat, which has an outsized impact on blue-collar construction workers - a large part of Asia's rapidly developing economies.
Scientists and environmentalists around the world have consistently urged countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, warning that this is the only way to slow the pace of global warming. Until that happens, experts fear the death toll will continue to rise, and millions of people will face a terrible decision with each new heat wave: work in dangerous conditions, or go to bed hungry.
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