India, March 24 -- Warming ocean waters are responsible for 50-64% rise in global land heatwaves.

Coastal oceanic warming and intensified humid heatwaves are linked, particularly in tropical regions.

Rising sea surface temperatures could serve as early warning indicators for extreme heat events.

Warming ocean waters or higher sea surface temperatures is driving 50-64 per cent of increase in land heatwaves globally, according to a joint study by multiple agencies.

"We use a complex network approach applied to climate reanalysis data to show that the observed intensification of humid heatwaves is closely associated with coastal oceanic warming over the period 1982-2023," the researchers wrote in the report Large-scale aggregation of hum...