Climate Variability and Heat Stress Index have Increasing Potential Ill-health and Environmental Impacts in the East London, South Africa

摘要

Impacts identified with climate variability and heat stress are already obvious in various degrees and expected to be disruptive in the near future across the globe. Heat Index describes the joint impact of temperature and humidity on the human body. Therefore, we investigated the trend of relative humidity, temperature, heat index, and humidex and their likelihood impacts on human health in the East London over 3 decades. Real-time data for daily average maximum temperature and relative humidity between 8:00 GMT and 18:00GMT hour for the period of 1986-2016 were retrieved from the South Africa Weather Service and analyzed using the new empirical heat index method to assess heat stress index in the study area. Results demonstrated that summer and autumn season (December to May) of various years over East London from 1986 to 2016 exceed high heat index values that is, when heat index is 38°C above. It is evident that summer and autumn months are more vulnerable to heat extreme and humidex as both shows high limits. The humidex and heat index increased annually with 0.03% and 0.9% respectively throughout the study period. The increment in the various indices showed highly significant ill health and environmental health impact on humans especially during prolonged exposure.