The 2022 heat wave in India and Pakistan is an extreme weather event which has resulted in the hottest March in India since 1901. The hot season arrived unusually early in the year and extended into April, affecting a large part of India's northwest and Pakistan. The heatwave has combined with a drought, with rainfall being only a quarter to a third of normal. The heat wave is remarkable for occurring during a

La Niña La Niña (; ) is an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that is the colder counterpart of as part of the broader El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern. The name ''La Niña'' originates from Spanish for "the girl", by an ...

event. Several cities across India had high temperatures over , with

Wardha Wardha is a city and a municipal council in Wardha district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarters of Wardha district. Wardha gets its name from the Wardha River which flows at the north, west and south bounda ...

rising to . The heatwave has also been felt in neighboring

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

, where the city of

Nawabshah Nawabshah ( sd, نوابشاھ, ur, ) is a tehsil and headquarters of the Shaheed Benazirabad District of Sindh province, Pakistan. This city is situated in the middle of Sindh province. It is the 27th largest city in Pakistan. Nawabshah Tehsi ...

recorded a high temperature of and

Jacobabad Jacobabad ( ur, and sd, جيڪب آباد; formerly Khanger or Khangarh) is a city in Sindh, Pakistan, serving as both the capital city of Jacobabad District and the administrative center of Jacobabad Taluka, an administrative subdivision ...

and

Sibi Sibi ( Sindhi: سيوي ur, ) is a city situated in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. The city is the headquarters of the district and tehsil of the same name. Etymology The origin of the town's name is attributed to Rani Sewi, a Hindu la ...

reaching . Pakistan's Minister of Climate Change

Sherry Rehman Sherry Rehman ( ur, ; born 21 December 1960) is a Pakistani politician, journalist and former diplomat who has been the member of the Senate of Pakistan since 2015. She was the first female Leader of the Opposition in the Senate from March to ...

described it as a "spring-less year". As of 9 May, at least 90 people have died; 25 in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, and 65 more in

, with the final toll expected to be much higher.

Severity and significance

The heat wave broke records for temperature highs in Pakistan and India. The wave has also received attention due to its length.

Impacts

Impact on agriculture

During the

2022 food crises 2022 saw a rapid increase in food prices and shortages of food supplies around the world. The compounding crises in distinct parts of the world were caused by compounding geopolitical and economic crisis. The crises followed food security a ...

, India began taking steps to export more rice and wheat, in part to fill the gaps created by the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

. However, the heatwave caused increasing local prices and lower supply, issues also exacerbated by the war increasing fertilizer prices. The heat wave occurred mostly during the final weeks of the wheat growing season, killing the plants shortly before harvest. The heatwave strongly impacted agriculture in India. At the same time early rainfall in India was 71% lower than the norm. In Punjab, the main crop producer in India, 15% of the harvest was lost and in some regions even 30%. The heatwave caused a reverse in policy by Indian government, from trying to import to address the crises, to halting exports. The heatwave has also severely impacted peach and apple harvests in

Balochistan Balochistan ( ; bal, بلۏچستان; also romanised as Baluchistan and Baluchestan) is a historical region in Western and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. ...

Nature and the environment

The heatwave has resulted in

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

s falling from the sky in

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

Bridge collapse

The Hassanabad Bridge in

Hunza Valley The Hunza Valley ( bsk, , Wakhi: '; ur, ) is a mountainous valley in the northern part of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, formed by the Hunza River, bordering Ishkoman to the northwest, Shigar to the southeast, Afghanistan's Wa ...

, Pakistan collapsed after a glacial lake released large amounts of water into a stream caused by the heatwave.

Electricity shortages

India faces its worst electricity shortage in more than six years, and demand due to the heat wave has strained the electric grid in the country. Scorching temperatures force early closures of schools and send people indoors.

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

, and

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

have all reduced power allocated to industry due to an increase in power consumption dedicated to cooling. The high power demand has increased demand for

coal in India Coal in India has been mined since 1774, and India is the second largest producer and consumer of coal after China, mining in FY 2022. Around 30% of coal is imported. Due to high demand and poor average quality, India imports coking coal to meet ...

, which is the main source of electricity generation in the country. The state-run enterprise

Coal India Coal India Limited (CIL) is an Indian central public sector undertaking under the ownership of the Ministry of Coal, Government of India. It is headquartered at Kolkata. It is the ''largest government-owned-coal-producer'' in the world. It is ...

increased its output by 27%.

Indian Railways Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tot ...

has had to cancel hundreds of passenger trains as an emergency measure to prioritize hauling coal to

coal power plant A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts capacity. They generate about a th ...

s to avoid blackouts. The state also requested that electricity providers import some 19 million tonnes of coal before the end of June. On Friday, 29 April 2022, demand for electricity reached 207

gigawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Watt ...

, an all-time high in India, representing an increase of two gigawatts of demand over the previous day.

Causes

A real-time

extreme event attribution Extreme event attribution, also known as attribution science, is a relatively new field of study in meteorology and climate science that tries to measure how ongoing climate change directly affects recent extreme weather events. Attribution scien ...

study by the

World Weather Attribution World Weather Attribution is an academic collaboration studying extreme event attribution, calculations of the impact of climate change on extreme meteorological events such as heat waves, droughts, and storms. When an extreme event occurs, the p ...

project shows the heat wave was rendered 30 times more likely and more intense due to climate change. Extreme event attribution study of a 2010 heatwave, show that this heatwave is consistent with underlying

climate change in Pakistan Climate change in Pakistan is a major issue for the country. Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate change. As with the changing climate in South Asia as a whole, the climate of Pakistan has changed over the past several decades, with signi ...

and

climate change in India Climate change in India is having profound effects on India, which is ranked fourth among the list of countries most affected by climate change in 2015. India emits about 3 gigatonnes (Gigatonne, Gt) Carbon dioxide equivalent, CO2eq of greenhouse ...

, and Indian scientists say that the major local cause was "weak western disturbances - storms originating in the Mediterranean region - which meant little pre-monsoon rainfall in north-western and central India".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heat wave in India and Pakistan, 2022

Heat wave A heat wave, or heatwave, is a period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity, especially in oceanic climate countries. While definitions vary, a heat wave is usually measured relative to the usual climate in the ...

2022 heat waves

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

March 2022 events in India March 2022 events in Pakistan April 2022 events in India April 2022 events in Pakistan May 2022 events in India May 2022 events in Pakistan June 2022 events in India June 2022 events in Pakistan Climate change in India Climate change in Pakistan