Why Singapore is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world. Part 3 in everywhere is warming twice as fast as everywhere else.
Extreme heat, combined with the island’s high humidity, could be life-threatening, the programme Why It Matters discovers.
SINGAPORE: The recent spells of hot weather that Singaporeans have been experiencing may not be just temporary heatwaves.
The island is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world – at 0.25 degrees Celsius per decade – according to the Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS). It is almost 1 deg C hotter today than in the 1950s.
What is even grimmer news – Singapore’s maximum daily temperatures could reach 35 to 37 deg C by year 2100, if carbon emissions continue to rise at the same rate, warned Dr Muhammad Eeqmal Hassim, senior research scientist with the MSS Centre for Climate Research Singapore.
Other countries already experience hotter temperatures than this – but the reason this spells trouble for Singapore, is that humidity is high here all year round.
This could lead to potentially deadly situations, as the programme Why It Matters found out. (Watch the episode here)
“When temperature and humidity get high enough, our bodies struggle to cope,” he explained. “We get higher heat stress levels. It can actually be quite lethal for us.”