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Data collector Komal Parmar, right, talks with Sapnaben Chunara to get heat related information in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n
Data collector Komal Parmar, right, talks with Sapnaben Chunara to get heat related information in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n
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That was once rare but now happens regularly. And this year, high heat started three weeks earlier than in previous years, touching 43 degrees Celsius (109.40 F) in early April. <\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it gets so hot, I can\u2019t think straight,\u201d said Chunara, sporting a black smartwatch that contrasts sharply with her colorful bangles and sari.<\/p>\n
Chunara is one of 204 residents of Vanzara Vas given the smartwatches for a year-long study to find out how heat affects vulnerable communities around the world. The watches measure heart rate and pulse and track sleep, and participants get weekly blood pressure checks. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n A man applies reflective paint on the roof of a house to reduce indoor heat in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n A man applies reflective paint on the roof of a house to reduce indoor heat in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n Researchers also painted some roofs with reflective paint to reduce indoor heat and will compare them to homes without so-called cool roofs using indoor heat sensors. Along with the smartwatches, this will help them understand how much cool roofs can help poor households deal with India\u2019s scorching summers.<\/p>\n Chunara, whose home didn\u2019t get a cool roof, said she\u2019s happy to participate by wearing the watch, confident the results will help her family, too.<\/p>\n \u201cThey might paint my roof as well and they might be able to do something that helps all of us in this area cope with the heat better,\u201d Chunara said.<\/p>\n Killer heat is the new normal<\/p>\n <\/p>\n People wheel in a heat stroke patient, covered in ice cube bags, at a hospital in Ahmadabad, India, May 21, 2010. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki, File)<\/p>\n People wheel in a heat stroke patient, covered in ice cube bags, at a hospital in Ahmadabad, India, May 21, 2010. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki, File)<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n Cities like Ahmedabad have always had hot summers, but now they\u2019re nearing the threshold beyond which exposure for more than a few hours can be fatal. <\/p>\n In the summer of 2010, the city witnessed nearly 1,300 excess deaths \u2014 how many more people died than would be expected \u2014 which experts found were most likely due to high temperatures. <\/p>\n An increasingly hot planet, due largely to burning fossil fuels such as coal and gas that release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, means already hot regions are getting even worse.<\/p>\n A 2023 study<\/a> estimated that if the global mean temperature continues to rise to just under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), there would be a 370% rise in heat-related deaths around the world and most would happen in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a big concern, and it also shows the heat divide\u201d between the poor and wealthy, said Abhiyant Tiwari, a climate expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council and part of the group conducting the research in Ahmedabad.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Field data collector Manisha Parmar, left, checks the temperature of Shantaben Vanzara in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n Field data collector Manisha Parmar, left, checks the temperature of Shantaben Vanzara in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n Following the 2010 tragedy, city officials, with help from public health and heat experts, devised an action plan to warn citizens when the heat is at dangerous levels and prepare city hospitals to respond rapidly to heat-related illness. The plan has been replicated across India and other parts of South Asia.<\/p>\n The last two years have been the world\u2019s hottest ever,<\/a> and researchers hope their work can provide an additional line of defense for those who bear the brunt of increasing heat.<\/p>\n Finding solutions to deal with heat<\/p>\n \n A device that tracks the temperature and other data is tied to the roof of a home in Vanzara Vas, a low-income neighborhood, in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)\n <\/p>\n A device that tracks the temperature and other data is tied to the roof of a home in Vanzara Vas, a low-income neighborhood, in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n \n Field data collector Manisha Parmar gathers information from a logging device tied to the roof inside a house in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)\n <\/p>\n Field data collector Manisha Parmar gathers information from a logging device tied to the roof inside a house in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n The Ahmedabad study is only one part of a global research project examining how heat is affecting poor, vulnerable communities in four cities across the world. Researchers also are measuring heat impacts using smartwatches and other devices in Africa\u2019s Burkina Faso, the Pacific island of Niue near New Zealand and in the Sonoran desert region in Mexico.<\/p>\n More than 1.1 billion people \u2014 about one-eighth of the world\u2019s population \u2014 live in informal settlements and poor neighborhoods that are particularly vulnerable, said Aditi Bunker, environmental health researcher associated with the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and Heidelberg University, Germany, who is leading the global project. <\/p>\n \u201cClimate change and heat are ravaging populations. And now the question comes, what are we doing to address this?\u201d she said, referring to the motivation behind the research.<\/p>\n In Ahmedabad, Bunker, along with researchers at the Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, is constantly collecting relevant health data.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shantaben Vanzara, wearing a wristwatch-style health monitor to study how heat affects vulnerable communities, wipes her face inside her house in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n Shantaben Vanzara, wearing a wristwatch-style health monitor to study how heat affects vulnerable communities, wipes her face inside her house in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n If they find that cool roofs effectively reduce indoor heat, they plan to paint the roofs of all the homes. Researchers hope their study leads to more use of solutions like cool roofs for poor, vulnerable populations around the world \u2014 and that policymakers will factor in such solutions when deciding how their countries and communities can adapt to increasing heat exposure.<\/p>\n For now, Vanzara Vas residents like Chunara and her neighbor, Shantaben Vanzara, said they will take any help they can get. Shantaben Vanzara said the heat has made her diabetes worse, but being part of the study has provided her family some respite. \u201cWe don\u2019t get to sleep because of the heat,\u201d she said. \u201cAfter the roof got painted, we can sleep for a few hours a night at least.\u201d<\/p>\n Chunara said temperatures used to be predictable.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we don\u2019t know when or what will happen,\u201d she said. \u201cThe only thing that we know for sure is that the heat is getting worse every year.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A youth bathes outside his home amid high temperatures in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n A youth bathes outside his home amid high temperatures in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ajit Solanki)<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Follow Sibi Arasu on X at @sibi123<\/a><\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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