Hotter temperatures and reduced rainfall will also worsen the region’s dreaded haze
about the secret behind Singapore’s transformation from fishing village to flourishing metropolis, Lee Kuan Yew, the city-state’s founding prime minister, credited air conditioning. It made “development possible in the tropics”, he said. These days, amid a sweltering heatwave, Singaporeans are more thankful than ever for their ACs. Temperatures have surged in recent weeks: on May 13th they touched 37°C, the highest daily temperature recorded since 1983.
A rapid attribution study by the World Weather Attribution Project, a network of climate modellers, found that the extreme heat and humidity in April in Bangladesh, India, Laos and Thailand were made 30 times more likely by climate change. The conditions, measured on a scale that is expressed in degrees of temperature but includes both heat and humidity, were at least 2°C hotter than they would have been without humans pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
In South-East Asia El Niño could also exacerbate another big problem: haze. Farmers and plantation owners often prepare for harvests by slashing and burning crops and forests. The resulting haze contains PM2.5, microscopic particles that damage lungs. In 2015 El Niño helped produce one of the worst haze outbreaks ever recorded in the region. It is estimated to have led to 100,000 premature deaths. In Indonesia it is thought to have cost the economy $16bn .
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