00:00Today on Climate in the News, a focus on heat, both the impact on us as humans as well as
00:06on medicine.
00:07Brett, our first story is from ABC News.
00:10It's summer, we focus on the stress of the heat, many heat waves across the world occurring,
00:15and the stress that it causes on people has increased in the recent decades.
00:20Yes, it has, Dan.
00:21The number of people experiencing heat stress has increased exponentially over the past several decades.
00:27One billion more people are being impacted compared to the 1970s.
00:32Yeah, it's gone from 16% of the global population to 22% of the global population is now impacted
00:37by significant heat stress days.
00:40Talk a bit about heat stress, why it's a problem for people, what causes it, and what the study found.
00:45Yeah, so heat stress is a leading cause of death, of weather-related deaths, worldwide.
00:50Heat stress is basically a measure of the heat load on a person.
00:53So we factor in the wind, temperature, of course, humidity, and also the amount of solar radiation the body's receiving.
01:00So that's what they looked at here.
01:02And what they found was the 10 warmest nights have warmed much more than the 10 warmest days over the
01:08study period going back to 1950.
01:10And that nighttime warming is a real problem because at night your body tends to recover because of the heat
01:16during the day.
01:16When the nights are warmer, there's less opportunity for your body to recover.
01:20So this clearly indicates that continued mitigation techniques are needed.
01:25Yeah, absolutely.
01:26Air conditioning, absolutely a big one there.
01:28And what they saw was two areas that were mostly affected by this.
01:34Europe, which we're seeing a lot of heat waves now rapidly increasing, and also South America.
01:38Yeah, certainly, as you mentioned, the air conditioning is a major need.
01:43Other cooling centers across urban areas would certainly help as well.
01:47Our second story today is from Science News, and this is a focus on medicine, Brett.
01:53And it's an interesting study, or actually a combination of two studies,
01:56that shows how the combination of warm conditions and dry conditions can make antibiotics,
02:00the medicine we use to treat bacterial infections, make them less effective.
02:03Yeah, antibiotics, not just in the pharmacy, they actually exist in the ground, in the soil.
02:09So what the study looked at was the increase in heat from climate change may be boosting antibiotic resistance in
02:18the soil.
02:18So what's happening is the soil is drying out, we're losing moisture.
02:22And so what antibiotics we have in the ground is becoming more concentrated,
02:28killing off sensitive bacteria, but giving rise to more resistant bacteria.
02:33And obviously, resistant bacteria is not a good thing.
02:35It's why sometimes infections are not able to be treated with antibiotics.
02:40It's not necessarily a clear link between soil and the clinic or the hospital,
02:44but it's certainly an interesting area of further study, too.
02:46Yeah, exactly.
02:4725% increase in antibiotic resistance was found in this study compared to normal.
02:53And then also dry, dusty conditions may also send some of these antibiotic-resistant pathogens much farther from the source.
03:02We're seeing a lot of that now going on.
03:04So clearly, the heat impacting things in many different ways, from heat stress to medicine.
03:09Yes.
03:09Thank you, Brett, for that information.
03:11Other stories about climate can be found at accuweather.com.
03:14Climb it.
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