From the strain extreme heat puts on your heart to the damage it may do to your mental health, not to mention the increased air pollution, the forecast isn’t good
When the temperature hit 40C in Britain last summer, the empty streets appeared “dystopian” to Dr Laurence Wainwright, a sustainability and psychiatry academic at Oxford University. Yet what he had assumed would serve as “a real wake-up call” on the world’s increasingly dangerous temperatures – which resulted in a European heatwave that killed more than 60,000 people last year – failed to prompt action. During the past month or so – as wildfires have torched more than 500 sq km of Greece, Arizona notched up a record-breaking 31 consecutive days at 43C or more and July became the hottest month ever recorded in the modern era – the extreme heat crisis has only appeared to grow. There’s no doubt about it, Wainwright says: “We’re in serious trouble.”
When the human body is exposed to excessive heat, it attempts to maintain its internal temperature by sweating – which cools you down as beads of perspiration evaporate – and by diverting additional blood flow to the skin, which allows for extra heat loss by convection.
