“Our results for a business-as-usual pathway indicate that especially in the second half of this century, unprecedented super- and ultra-extreme heatwaves will emerge,” explains George Zittis of The Cyprus Institute, first author of the study. These events will involve excessively high temperatures of up to 56 degrees Celsius and higher in urban settings, and could last for multiple weeks, being potentially life-threatening for humans and animals. In the second half of the century, about half of the MENA population, or approximately 600 million people, could be exposed to such annually recurring extreme weather conditions.