Future Heat Stress During Muslim Pilgrimage (Hajj) Projected to Exceed “Extreme Danger” Levels
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Kang_et_al-2019-Geophysical_Research_Letters.pdf
Description
Published version
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1.5 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Kang, Suchul
Pal, Jeremy S.
Eltahir, Elfatih A. B.
Date Issued
August 2019
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Citation
Kang, Suchul, Pal, Jeremy S., and Eltahir, Elfatih A. B. "Future heat stress during Muslim pilgrimage (Hajj) projected to exceed “extreme danger” levels." Geophysical Research Letters 46,16 (2019): 10094–10100. ©2019 Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The Muslim pilgrimage or Hajj, which is one of the five pillars of Muslim faith, takes place outdoors in and surrounding Mecca in the Saudi Arabian desert. The U.S. National Weather Service defines an extreme danger heat stress threshold which is approximately equivalent to a wet-bulb temperature of about 29.1 °C—a combined measure of temperature and humidity. Here, based on results of simulations using an ensemble of coupled atmosphere-ocean global climate models, we project that future climate change with and without mitigation will elevate heat stress to levels that exceed this extreme danger threshold through 2020 and during the periods of 2047 to 2052 and 2079 to 2086, with increasing frequency and intensity as the century progresses. If climate change proceeds on the current trajectory or even on a trajectory with considerable mitigation, aggressive adaptation measures will be required during years of high heat stress risk.
MIT Department
Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science and Engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083686
