India, April 20 -- India is yet to see the worst of heat extremes caused by the climate crisis, and its land mass has warmed by only 0.88 degrees Celsius between 1980-90 and 2015-24, compared to 1.4 degrees C for the planet as a whole, according to a new paper released Wednesday that picks an unusual candidate as one of the main factors behind this anomaly: air pollution.

"Understanding this warming gap matters for adaptation planning because the processes that have partially suppressed warming in parts of India are not guaranteed to persist," says the paper, "Critical Perspectives On Extreme Heat in India " by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University. It addresses issues that came up during an interdisci...