A new study has projected that for every fractional increase in global warming, the duration of heatwaves could extend by a greater amount than previously observed. This suggests that as the planet continues to warm, heatwaves will last longer at an accelerating rate.

The longest heatwaves will see the greatest acceleration in extending in duration, and the frequency of the most extreme heat waves will increase the most, the study found.

Climate change has been consistently linked to hotter, longer, more intense and frequent heatwaves. However, the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found a "non-linear" increase in heatwave duration concerning an increase in warming by a fraction of a degree.