S4 Climate change — E level

A heatwave isn’t just hot weather. It is when these things happen:

• 3 days of weather that is hot compared to normal for a particular place.
• 3 days of weather that is hotter than what happened for the previous month.
• It doesn’t cool down very much overnight.

Heatwaves make your body work hard. Some people are more vulnerable to heat. Heatwaves can make them unwell enough to go to hospital.

Here is a chart showing how often heatwaves will happen. Here is more information about heatwaves in Australia.

Questions

1. Before climate change, how many heatwaves did Australia get every hundred years?
2. With the climate we have now, how many heatwaves would Australia get in 100 years?
3. How many heatwaves is Australia likely to get in 100 years if we let global warming increase to 2.6°C?