(NEW YORK) — Despite efforts by major Western nations to combat climate change, the frequency of heatwaves is expected to increase, according to a study released Thursday.

By 2100, over a billion people living in tropical and subtropical regions will annually experience temperatures that exceed dangerous heat index levels, the metric that measures heat exposure in human beings, according to the report in the Communications Earth & Environment journal.

The study found that people living in sub-Saharan Africa, India and the Arabian Peninsula will be exposed to dangerous heat index levels for most days of the year.

According to the National Weather Service, anything between 103 degrees and 124 degrees Fahrenheit is considered part of the dangerous heat index, while indexes 125 degrees Fahrenheit or higher are considered extremely dangerous.

Extreme heat can cause health issues, from fatigue to life-threatening problems such as heat strokes.

The Paris Climate Agreement, the U.N.-sponsored accord to help slow the effects of climate change, has a goal to stop the global temperature from reaching 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with a goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Even if the goal is met, it’s still not enough to prevent areas of the tropics and subtropics from experiencing dangerous heat levels, according to the report.

“The climate science community, for quite a while, has understood that the Paris agreement’s goal is going to be very difficult to achieve based on the warming that’s already [happened],” Lucas Zeppetello, Ph.D., an earth science fellow at Harvard University and one of the authors of the study, told ABC News.

If countries manage to meet the goal, crossing the dangerous heat index threshold will be up to 10 times more common by 2100 in the U.S., Western Europe, China and Japan, while it could double in the tropics, resulting in more than one billion of people experiencing up to 124-degree temperatures by 2100, according to the study.

Tropical and sub-tropical areas will be affected the most due to their location, Zeppetello said.

Zeppetello doesn’t think humanity is past the point of no return, as measures can be taken to address the problem, but warned that things would get worse without action.

“The difference between the fifth percentile, which is a world where we get climate emissions under control, is just vastly different from a world in which we don’t do that,” he said.

According to the report, there’s a 0.1% chance of limiting the global average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, with the mean temperature headed toward 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

“It’s extremely frightening to think what would happen if 30 to 40 days a year were exceeding the extremely dangerous threshold,” Zeppetello said in a statement. “These are frightening scenarios that we still have the capacity to prevent. This study shows you the abyss, but it also shows you that we have some agency to prevent these scenarios from happening.”

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(NEW YORK) — Officials have identified a set of human remains that surfaced earlier this year in Lake Mead, as the reservoir deals with a historic drought.

The remains, found May 7 at Callville Bay, on the Nevada side of the lake, are one of several that have been uncovered in the lake since May 1, when human remains were found in a barrel.

The Clark County coroner identified the remains as Thomas Erndt, who is believed to have drowned over two decades ago.

County officials said the remains were identified through investigative information, DNA analysis and reports of the original incident.

Erndt, a 42-year-old from Las Vegas, reportedly drowned on Aug. 2, 2002, although officials said Wednesday that the official cause and manner of death are undetermined.

The Las Vegas Review Journal published a death notice on Aug. 8, 2002, that said Erndt jumped from a boat, was missing and presumed drowned, according to an article from the newspaper Wednesday.

The remains, described by officials as “skeletal,” were found by two sisters, Lindsey and Lynette Melvin, who said they were paddleboarding on the lake because the water was too shallow to go snorkeling.

The pair told Las Vegas ABC affiliate KTNV-TV that they found the remains when they stopped to explore a sand bar that they said had been underwater before the drought lowered water levels in the lake.

The Melvins said they initially thought the skeletal remains were from a big horn sheep. However, once they saw a human jawbone with teeth still attached, they reported it to the National Park Service.

“We just really hope that the family of that person finally gets answers and hope their soul is laid to rest peacefully,” Lynette Melvin told KTNV in May.

Authorities have uncovered human remains in Lake Mead five times since May. The first set, found in a barrel on May 1, had a gunshot wound and is being investigated as a homicide, officials said. The remains belonged to someone who died in the mid-1970s to early ‘80s based on his clothing and footwear, police said.

Following the discovery of Erndt’s remains on May 7, officials uncovered partial remains on July 25 near Swim Beach on the Nevada side of the lake’s west end, according to a statement from the National Park Service. A second set of partial remains was discovered in the same area on Aug. 7.

Officials are still working to determine if these remains are related.

The latest discovery of remains was on Aug. 15, found again at Swim Beach.

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