Scientists predict that extreme heat in Israel will increase by 600% by 2100

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Scientists predict that by 2100, the number of bursts of extreme heat in Israel will increase seven times, or 600 percent per year. In this case, temperature drops will reach 10 degrees Celsius and last not days, but months. Mortality from heat stroke is predicted to rise more than tenfold, according to a new study on climate change in the Eastern Mediterranean. – concentration of carbon that contributes to global warming by an average of 8.5 watts per square meter and depends on the path along which the Earth moves.

“Climate change is already being felt and is taking a serious turn. Winter never came to Israel this year”,– Hochman says. “Pole and the Middle East – the two areas where warming is happening fastest, although proximity to the Mediterranean reduces extremes in Israel”.

Extreme heat in Israel is already causing about 30 deaths each year. Scientists predict that by 2100 this figure will grow 11 times and reach 330 heat-related deaths per year.

“This is a conservative estimate based on linear extrapolation of local mortality statistics”, – says the author of the study. “If the progression is not linear but exponential, the mortality could be much higher”.

for the Eastern Mediterranean, one heatwave can last all summer, – Hochman warns. “It's not a heat wave, it's a thermal tsunami.”

With regard to temperature difference, the new model considers not only temperature, but also “heat stress”; – it takes into account humidity, wind intensity and “inversion sea base”. The wetter the weather, the harder it is for sweat to evaporate and cool the body, and thus the easier it is to get heatstroke.
Extreme temperatures affect not only our well-being and mortality rates, but also infrastructure, animals and agriculture.

For example, a power plant that uses water to cool its equipment will have to shut down if the water gets too warm – this is already happening in some European nuclear power plants. And the desalination plants that Israel is counting on to reduce drought stress depend on electricity.

The study highlights the urgency of recognizing the challenges facing Israel and the world, and preparing for more than sea level rise and invasion Mediterranean Sea to the Hula Valley, but also to a significant increase in life-threatening heat stress.

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