Science Summary: Heat wave in Phalodi, India, 19 May 2016
This brief presents findings from the Raising Risk Awareness Project on climate attribution science following the heat wave in Phalodi, Rajasthan, India, 19 May 2016. An analysis was completed to determine whether human-induced climate change had contributed to the heat wave event and to inform decision-makers whether such heat waves are more likely to happen in the future.
Key messages include the following:
- Consistent with human-caused climate change, annual mean temperatures across India are increasing.
- Heat waves in a relatively small area of India are becoming more frequent and more intense, but this is not true for most of the country.
- On 19 May 2016, the city of Phalodi in Rajasthan set an all-time record for any calendar day, hitting 51°C.
- This analysis used peer-reviewed methods to see if climate change is affecting the risk of record heat like that on 19 May 2016 in north-western India, and like that of a similar one-day heat event in Andhra Pradesh in May 2015.
- The analysis did not find that human-induced climate change played a role in these individual heat waves. This runs counter to studies done on similar extreme heat events in other parts of the world.
- The lack of a detectable climate change trend may be due to the masking effect of aerosols on warming, and increased use of irrigation.