India's Stricter Heat Baseline Masks Warming Trend

India Meteorological Department shifted its heat-wave baseline from 1981–2010 to 1991–2020, raising the temperature anomaly threshold needed to trigger alerts. Because the newer period incorporates warmer baseline years, events qualifying as extreme under older standards no longer register as anomalous. The revision, though climatologically correct, creates a blind spot: as summer temperatures shift upward, the definition of "unusual" shifts with them, potentially delaying public health warnings when populations face genuine risk.