An adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress
Abstract
Despite the uncertainty in future climate-change impacts, it is often assumed that humans would be able to adapt to any possible warming. Here we argue that heat stress imposes a robust upper limit to such adaptation. Peak heat stress, quantified by the wet-bulb temperature TW, is surprisingly similar across diverse climates today. TW never exceeds 31 °C. Any exceedence of 35 °C for extended periods should induce hyperthermia in humans and other mammals, as dissipation of metabolic heat becomes impossible. While this never happens now, it would begin to occur with global-mean warming of about 7 °C, calling the habitability of some regions into question. With 11–12 °C warming, such regions would spread to encompass the majority of the human population as currently distributed. Eventual warmings of 12 °C are possible from fossil fuel burning. One implication is that recent estimates of the costs of unmitigated climate change are too low unless the range of possible warming can somehow be narrowed. Heat stress also may help explain trends in the mammalian fossil record.
Keywords
climate impacts, global warning, pateclimate, mammalian physiology
Date of this Version
2010
DOI
10.1073/pnas.0913352107
Repository Citation
Sherwood, Steven C. and Huber, Matthew, "An adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress" (2010). Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Faculty Publications. Paper 79.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0913352107
Volume
107
Issue
21
Pages
9552-9555
Link Out to Full Text
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/21/9552