Hundreds of millions of people could be affected by heatwaves within 30 years - study

Fatal heatwaves could affect hundreds of millions of people as global temperatures rise, a new study estimates. Heat stress events are considered potentially deadly when ‘wet bulb’ temperatures exceed 35C for three or more days. In this new research, the team found that, with an increase of 2C, there could be 774 million exposures to potentially unsurvivable heat by 2050. At 1.5C, that number would be nearly half, at 423 million.