The Highest Temperatures on Earth

In 2010, the most-common value of near-surface air temperature was near 25 °C and a thin tail reached to 50 °C (albeit with very few points above 40 °C). Confirmed temperatures over 50 C had not occurred till then. 

Only five days ago, one of the top-three highest temperatures ever measured on the planet at any time has been recorded at California - 54.4 C. Some climatologists consider 53.88 C readings recorded in California on June 30, 2013, and in Kuwait and Pakistan in 2016 and 2017, respectively, as the highest ever reliably measured on the planet.

A study projects that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at a high rate, temperatures in parts of northeastern India and most of Bangladesh will exceed a deadly threshold during seasonal heat waves. Extreme heat waves that now happen once every 25 years will become annual events with temperatures close to the threshold for several weeks each year, which could lead to famine and mass migration.

India's rising temperatures are already deadly..

India is now two and a half times more likely to experience a deadly heat wave than a half century ago, and all it took was an increase in the average temperature of just 0.5 degrees Celsius, a 2017 study shows.

The findings are sobering considering that the world is on track for far more warming. Last year, a record high of 53.5 degrees C was set in the southwest Pakistani city of Turbat.

Even if countries are able to meet the Paris Agreement goals in curbing climate-warming carbon emissions, that would still only limit the global temperature rise to an estimated 2 degrees C.

The study shows that while India's average temperatures rose by more than 0.5 degrees C between 1960 and 2009, the probability of India experiencing a massive heat-related mortality event—defined by more than 100 deaths—shot up by 146 percent.

The study also found that the number of heat wave days increased by 25 percent across most of India. Areas in the south and west experienced 50 percent more heat wave events, or periods of extreme heat lasting more than three or four days, in 1985-2009 compared with the previous 25-year period.

India is already seeing new deadly highs. Last year in May, India recorded a record 52.4 degrees C in the western city of Jaisalmer.

The vast majority of India's 1.25 billion people are poor and have few options as temperatures hit sweltering levels, drying forests and riverbeds and wiping out farm animals. Very few have the protection of air conditioning.

Most in India rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, and climate change is likely to hurt their crops.

Many who work as farmers or in construction will have to shorten their work days by 2-3 hours within four decades, simply because it will be too hot outdoors, according to a 2016 report by the U.N. Environment Program.

Most Indian cities and states are not prepared to handle more heat, even if they understand the devastation it can wreak. In 2010, some 1,200 people died in a heat wave in the western city of Ahmedabad, prompting city officials to introduce seven-day weather forecasts, extra water supplies and cool-air summer shelters.

After more than 2,500 were killed in heat-ravaged areas across India in 2015, nine other cities rolled out a plan to educate children about heat risk, stock hospitals with ice packs and extra water, and train medical workers to identify heat stress, dehydration and heat stroke.

But the nine cities cover only about 11 million people, not even 1 percent of the country's population.