Editor's note: This is part of a series of posts written in cooperation with NRDC's India Initiative. Learn and read more here.
Our plane had landed safely in Mumbai after the 14 hour flight from Newark. Those of us in transit to Ahmedabad were asked to remain onboard during the crew transition before the last leg of this trip -- this time only a one hour flight to the North. The captain had announced just before our 5:30 pm landing that the current temperature in Ahmedabad on this 27th day of March 2011 was 40 degrees Celsius.
As an American, I relate best to temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit. As a pediatrician, I have learned to translate between the two: degrees Fahrenheit, a number that parents understand, and degrees Celsius, what we increasingly try to use in clinics and the hospital. Forty degrees Celsius means over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. 104 degrees more precisely, a fever by anyone’s definition.
What would have been labeled an extreme heat event in my home city of New York -- prompting enactment of emergency planning protocols including opening and extended hours of cooling centers for those without air conditioning or the means to afford the electricity bill -- was not so atypical for late March in this largest city of the semi-arid state of Gujarat.
But a hot evening seemed the perfect beginning of this trip. I am here to participate in a workshop on heat and health. A small group from the United States is gathering to interact with a number of Indian colleagues. Together we'll consider who in this city of Ahmedabad is most vulnerable to the effects of heat, how climate change -- particularly in urban settings and this is a city of about 5 million -- could play a compounding role, and what is being or could be done by individuals or the government to protect people’s health.
Extreme heat events, or heat waves, kill more people in the U.S. than any other single extreme weather event per year (PDF). More than floods. More than hurricanes. They also contribute to non-fatal illness but that’s more elusive to study. We’re beginning to understand who is most at risk of death from heat waves in the U.S. -- seniors without access to air conditioning being one major at-risk group. But knowing who among those seniors is most at risk and what we can do to help as public health professionals is an area of ongoing work.
Ahmedabad might have some similarities in terms of who gets sick or dies more easily when the temperature rises but, more interestingly, this Gujarati city perhaps has some striking differences. Case in point: this 100+ degree Fahrenheit day in early spring is par for the course and there are already, by necessity, many adaptations woven into people’s lives that protect them against the ill effects of extreme heat.
