Owen has been put into the climate chamber by Jem Cheng, a research fellow at the Heat and Health Research Centre at the University of Sydney. "S

Scientists testing deadly heat limits on humans show thresholds may be much lower than first thought

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2024-09-02 18:00:04

Owen has been put into the climate chamber by Jem Cheng, a research fellow at the Heat and Health Research Centre at the University of Sydney.

"So we are the first to actually put people in these environments to actually see, physiologically, what is happening to their core temperature or to their heart rate.

Rising CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are driving increases in deadly heat around the world. This summer alone, in the northern hemisphere, thousands have died during extreme heat events.

According to Ollie Jay, a professor of heat and health and the director of the university's Heat and Health Research Centre, there's mounting evidence to show the limit may be lower than first thought.

"We don't want to be sleepwalking into a scenario where we think that these future conditions are going to be survivable when in fact they're not going to be," Professor Jay says.

"The simple fact is, more and more people are going to be facing, maybe not quite these conditions, but getting close," he says.