Study projects millions of European heat deaths as world warms
Study projects millions of European heat deaths as world warms
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Extreme temperatures — mostly heat — are projected to kill as many as 2.3 million people in Europe by the end of the century unless countries get better at reducing carbon pollution and adapting to hotter conditions, a new study says. Currently, cold temperatures kill more people in Europe than heat by large margins. But a team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used climate simulations of different scenarios and looked at death rates in 854 cities. They found as it warms cold deaths lessen slowly, but heat deaths soar rapidly.
With few reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases and little adaptation like air conditioning and cooling centers, Italy, southern Spain and Greece should see massive increases in the rate of heat deaths due to climate change. On the flip side, much of Scandinavia and the United Kingdom will see fewer temperature-related deaths, mostly due to moderating cold temperatures, the study in Monday's journal Nature Medicine found.
But even in the most optimistic scenarios — with carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil and gas cut sharply and massive increases in adaptation — there's a net increase in temperature-related deaths as the world warms, said study lead author Pierre Masselot, an environmental epidemiologist and statistician.
The drop in cold deaths up north are in places not as populated as places further south, where the heat really kicks in and hurts, Masselot said. “The Mediterranean is a so-called climate hotspot," Masselot said. "It's a region that is warming much quicker than the rest of the world. And Malta is right in the middle of it.”.
