BHUBANESWAR: There is an increasing need to address heatwaves not merely as weather events, but as interconnected climate, health, governance and livelihood challenges, weather experts have stressed.
During an interactive session on ‘Heatwaves, Health Risks and Weather Reporting’ here, the experts warned about the growing challenges posed by heatwaves and emphasised the need for responsible and informed reporting on heat-related risks.
Debadatta Swain, professor at IIT-Bhubaneswar, discussed about the scientific understanding of heatwaves and explained the difference between actual temperature and feel-like temperature. He explained how extreme heat affected the human body, including the body’s reduced ability to cool itself during prolonged heat exposure.
Chief climate scientist at Aurassure, Dr Ashutosh Acharya attributed the rise in temperature in Bhubaneswar to increased urbanisation and concretisation across different wards. Elaborating on the heat island effect, he suggested ways through which journalists can use data, visualisation tools, storytelling techniques, and hyper-local narratives to better communicate heat-related risks.
During a panel discussion, Bhubaneswar Meteorological Centre director Manorama Mohanty, Development and Environment Futures Trust chairman Arabinda Mishra and others underlined that heat action plans should move beyond only ‘temperature response documents’ and evolve into an integrated climate-health-risk management framework.
A special screening of short film titled “It’s Only 47°C”, produced by Naseeruddin Shah, was also held during the workshop. The film highlighted the unequal impact of heat on traffic personnel, gig workers, rickshaw-pullers, farmers, homemakers and other vulnerable groups whose livelihoods and health are directly affected by rising temperatures.
The workshop was organised by Press Club of Odisha, Socratus Foundation for Collective Wisdom, Odisha Environment Congress and Asar Social Impact Advisors.