Hajj deaths highlight Saudi Arabia's escalating climate-related health risks

• Some 1.8 million people have attended the annual pilgrimage this year in Saudi Arabia, where the temperature has reached 125°F in recent days, according to Saudi authorities.

Between the lines: Extreme summer heat in Saudi Arabia is not new. A 2019 study noted "stampede incidents resulting in significant death among pilgrims occurred during Hajj in 1990 and in 2015" that coincided with peaks in the combined temperature and humidity in the region.

• However, the study projected that heat stress during the pilgrimage would reach "extreme danger" levels this century.
• A March study warned that temperatures in the area had increased on average by 0.4°C every decade over the past 40 years when the gatherings occurred in the dry cycle.
• And a 2021 study found that over the past four decades, "Saudi Arabia has warmed up at a rate that is 50% higher" than the rest of the Northern Hemisphere.

Zoom out: Al-Jalajel said Saudi authorities had implemented measures to combat heat stress and conducted 1.3 million preventive services including medical care upon arrival for pilgrims.

• However, the BBC reports there have been overcrowding and sanitation problems such as no air conditioning in tents, transportation issues and a lack of available water.

• Officials have said unauthorized pilgrims who don't have the required Hajj visa documentation have added to overcrowding issues.
• Many of those on the pilgrimage that all Muslims who are physically and financially able to are expected to make at least once in their lives are elderly, the BBC notes.

The bottom line: The heat wave in Saudi Arabia has been made "at least five times more likely" because of human-caused climate change, per Climate Central's Climate Shift Index, which compares observed or forecast temperatures with simulations of the same weather conditions minus excess atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Editor's note: This article has been corrected to reflect that the March study shows average temperatures increased by 0.4°C every decade (not every year) in the dry cycle.