Bangladesh has been tormented by heatwaves perennially during the last 10-12 years from June to August in a clear indication of perils of global warming, experts say.
However, the mercury has yet to cross the highest-temperature record in the 1970s, according to them.
Analysing data of 43 years, they say that the highest temperature so far was recorded 45 degrees Celsius in Rajshahi in 1972 and 42.3 degrees in Dhaka in 1960.
But, they say, people feel the burn of the heat even at the mercury 35 degrees Celsius this year for extreme heat condition.
He says as records of other parameters like humidity, wind, gap between low and highest temperature in a day show a significant change in the recent years, people's tolerable level has decreased.
"Humidity in June-August increases 90 per cent, showing rapid change in the weather," he says.
Another expert says temperature average gap has been reduced to 5 to 6 degrees Celsius in recent years from earlier 10 degrees which caused people to feel the severity of the hot weather.
"As temperature gap between day and night helps a human body or average temperature to go down, gap reduction along with high humidity causes people to suffer most than the highest-ever temperature point in the history," says another meteorologist.
Like many other impacts of global warming, heatwave has been a concern globally, including experiencing the worse in 2024. Bangladesh also experienced the severe heatwave the same year.
Though the country has adopted various governance structures within its broader climate -change adaptation and disaster-management frameworks to address extreme heat, there is a lack of integration among all departments concerned.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) and the Disaster Management Bureau (DMB), both city corporations have been working on the climate issues, including managing heatwaves without coordination and integration to reduce and manage the situation.
Though BMD keeps record of highest and lowest temperatures both manually and automatic from total 258 weather stations across the country since 2017, the department was earlier totally dependent on manual data collection only a few points.
Dhaka city lacks adequate coverage of heat-temperature detection due to setting up one manual station on the Met office premises.
BMD published the data in a report titled 'Chancing Climate of Bangladesh" in 2024.
Inland Water Modeling last year set up 30 monitoring devices at the city's different points to gather high-quality data from 20 strategic spots, including Ramna Park, Mirpur, Old Dhaka and commercial areas with high-level air condition used to map the city's extreme heat islands. It is yet to be finalised.
Heat Action Plan has been prepared by the Disaster Management Bureau.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is preparing the report on extreme heat islands based on IWM study. ICDDR,B has only a heatwave advisory for rural areas.
This year, heatwave has become a concern in European countries for the mercury heating up to 44 degrees Celsius, reportedly killing hundreds of people unable to tolerate unusual hot weather in the minus-temperature region.
But misery of the people of the country is lack of coping capacity with the weather. While workers in industries, day labourers in streets, agricultural land, construction, field, transportation, and traders feel the agony of the unbearable temperature, housewives and home assistants cannot avoid at kitchen and home chores as well as pedestrians, traffic police cannot avoid leaving the streets.
The Met office recorded 36 degrees Celsius on June 28, followed by 35.4 degrees on June 27, 35.6 degrees on June 26, 34.1degrees on June 25 and 32.8 degrees on June 24.
But the meteorologists say it is no doubt a extreme heat condition though the mercury, according to temperature definition, shows at mild to moderate level.
smunima@yahoo.com