Extreme Heat Saps Trillions of Dollars From Developing Economies
Dartmouth researchers find that heat waves, exacerbated by climate change, have significantly depressed economic output in poor countries since the 1990s.
People shelter under a bridge during a hot summer day in Allahabad, India.
Photographer: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images
Heat is exhausting. When it’s hot, we honk more when driving and more readily descend into hate speech. Major League Baseball umpires call balls and strikes less accurately. Workers are likelier to fall off ladders.
How heat stress shows up in economic activity overall — and how climate change affects it — continues to draw research attention. A new peer-reviewed analysis by two researchers at Dartmouth College, published today in Science Advances, adds more detail by focusing on the economic effects of extreme heat. It finds that extreme heat caused trillions of dollars in damage to economies around the world between 1992 and 2013. Hot, poorer countries are most vulnerable: They lost a cumulative 6.7% of potential GDP to extreme heat, compared with 1.5% for developed, and cooler, northern countries.