Extreme hot days and nights to soar by 2100 even in best-case scenario

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Even if we limit warming due to climate change, the number of extremely hot days followed by intensely hot nights could jump four times to 32 days in northern hemisphere summers by 2100

By Adam Vaughan

11 February 2020

Thanks to climate change, we may not get a break from extreme heat in the summer, even at night
Xurzon/Getty

Climate change may make summer nights a lot sweatier, and potentially even deadly. The number of extremely hot days followed by intensely hot nights could jump to 32 days 鈥� four times as many as there are currently 鈥� in northern hemisphere summers by 2100, even if the world acts to check global warming.

In the worst-case warming scenario, which is seen as unlikely, the number leaps to 69 days, or three-quarters of summer days.

Typically, scientists have looked at how climate change will affect the frequency of hot days, or hot nights, but not usually whether they will be consecutive. Such 鈥渟ummertime compound hot extremes鈥� can be harmful because they give people no let-up, says Laura Wilcox at the University of Reading, UK, who wasn鈥檛 involved in the new research.

鈥淐onsecutive hot days and nights are thought to be what makes heatwaves particularly dangerous, as you have no respite from the heat,鈥� she says. This is particularly true in Europe where air conditioning in homes is uncommon, she adds.

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