TEMPERATURE RISKS
Climate change has health impacts on all people, but displaced persons at higher risk. Refugees and displaced persons are categorized as vulnerare populations because they are often subjected to more than one health threat on their journey to a finding a permanent home . Exposure to multiple health threats decreases a person’s ability to adapt and increases the risk of temepraturerelated health effects (U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2016). Longterm forecasts indicate there are peak heat stress limitations to human adaptability; as global wetbulb temperature ,Tw, exceeds 35 C for extended periods in Earth’s hottest regions, dissipation of human metabolic heat will lead to hyperthermia. When our global mean temperature warms by 7C, certain regions of the Earth will become uninhabitable. The continued burning of fossil fuels will eventually cause global mean warming to reach 11-12 C and render the majority of the planet uninhabitable (Sherwood, S. C., & Huber, M., 2010). Currently global wetbulb temperatures do not exceed 31 C, but predictions state that we are likely to experience Tw of 35 C within the next century. Climate studies indicate that certain regions of the world such as Southwest Asia will become uninhabitable by 2100 as Tw rises above 35 C. The diagram to the left plots several predictions for future wetbulb temperature rise above 35 C in the Middle East (Pal, J. S., & Eltahir, E. A., 2015). In summary, climate change in the short term causes short term extreme weather events and heat stress that will exacerbate health risks in the process of displacement. In the long term, global warming with high certainty will render entire regions uninhabitable and have a critical consequences on mobility and displacement. 27