Temperatures running 5–8°C above seasonal norms have killed dozens across India and Pakistan, with climate change identified as a key amplifying factor.
Extreme heat is not unusual across the Indian subcontinent in the weeks before the monsoon arrives, but the conditions that have gripped India and Pakistan since mid-April are widely regarded as exceptional even by regional standards. Daily maximum temperatures have exceeded 46°C across numerous locations, and sustained high-pressure systems — which suppress cloud formation and prevent cooling rainfall — are understood to have trapped hot air near the surface for days at a time, allowing temperatures to build in ways that a single brief heatwave would not. The human toll has been recorded at a minimum of 37 deaths in India and 10 in Pakistan, though these figures are considered by researchers to be a substantial undercount, given that heat-related mortality is known to be systemically misclassified in Indian health data.
The consequences of prolonged heat extend well beyond individual casualties. Record electricity demand has been driven by the surge in air-conditioning use, while drought conditions are now estimated to affect more than one million square kilometres across both countries. In urban areas, the problem is compounded by the heat-island effect, whereby concrete and asphalt absorb thermal energy during daylight hours and release it slowly through the night, meaning that the populations least likely to have access to cooling are exposed to the greatest overnight risk.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution project have estimated that the first major heatwave of the season, which ran from 15 to 29 April, was made approximately three times more likely and around 1°C hotter as a direct result of climate change. At current global warming levels of roughly 1.4°C, events of this severity are projected to occur across the subcontinent approximately once every five years — a frequency that is itself considered alarming.
The longer-term trajectory, however, is what many analysts find most troubling. Current global emissions pathways are broadly consistent with approximately 2.6°C of warming by 2100. Under that scenario, heatwaves comparable to those seen this April would be expected to strike every two to three years and would be estimated to run some 2.2°C hotter still, raising serious questions about the adaptive capacity of densely populated, lower-income regions where outdoor labour remains unavoidable for millions of people.