When the Term "Heatwave" Is No Longer Enough

Reuters published a landmark investigation arguing that "heat waves" is an outdated term, proposing "heat storms" instead to describe massive temperature events that now regularly sweep the planet. The investigation defines heat storms as episodes lasting at least five consecutive days covering over 1% of Earth's surface, and found that the planet now experiences an average of 102 heat storms annually—compared to just five in the 1960s—with at least one continuously occurring for the past 18 years. The shift in terminology aims to better communicate the scale and severity of extreme heat to the public compared to the abstract language of climate science.