EXTREME temperatures – mostly heat It is expected that up to 2.3 million people will be killed in Europe by the end of the century unless the countries improve in reducing carbon pollution and adapting to the most hot conditions, says a new study.
Currently, cold temperatures kill more people in Europe more than heat with large margins. But a team from the London College for Hygiene and Equatorial Medicine is used climate Simulation of different scenarios and looked at death rates in 854 cities. They found because heated cold deaths slowly, but Thermal deaths It rises quickly.
With a few discounts in greenhouse gas emissions and little adaptation such as air conditioning and cooling centers, Italy, South Spain and Greece should see huge increases in the thermal death rate due to climate change. On the other hand, many Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom will see fewer Nature Medicine He found.
But even in the most optimistic scenarios-with emissions of carbon dioxide from coal, oil and gas, and huge adaptation increases-there is a net increase in the deaths associated with temperatures with high temperatures in the world. And statistical.
Masselot said that the decrease in cold deaths to the north in places that are not populated like places in the south, where heat already enters and pains.
“The Mediterranean is a hot climate point. It is a region that heats up much faster than the rest of the world. Malta is right in the middle.”
The study displays the average mortality associated with Malta’s temperature to increase 269 people per 100,000 by the end of the century. In contrast, Ireland will decrease a little, 15 per 100,000 people.
Masselot said Western Europe is wealthy prices than Eastern Europe.
Several waves of heat of thousands of people have been killed in the past few years in Europe, but one in 2003 is the largest with about 70,000 deaths.
The major cities with many people near the Mediterranean can see the bodies accumulating during the rest of the century. The study says in the worst cases in which they studied Barcelona, you can see nearly a quarter of a million temperature -related deaths, while Rome and Naples are close to 150,000 deaths.
In a scenario with carbon pollution only a little worse than current trends and an additional and unpaid for heat, the Masselot team found more than 5.8 million over heat deaths only than climate change, but approximately 3.5 million cold deaths as well. The team has Interactive site Where cities and various factors can be adjusted.
Christie Eibi, the world of public health and climate at the University of Washington, said that the Massilot team was also able to isolate climate change, which led to major factors in the population who made the study more beneficial and admired.
“This is largely line up with what we expect,” said Dr. Courtney Howard, the Canadian Emergency Chamber and Vice President of the International Climate and Health Alliance. It was not part of the study. “When you think of the temperatures of the day in summer in places like Rome – they start waking up in the 1940s (104 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit) …. This is the severe heat stress of the stroke of healthy youth and very dangerous for the elderly, especially if they do not have Air conditioning. “
Massilot said that Europe has an oldest housing stock and not much air conditioning needs a huge amount of adaptation, such as central air, green spaces and cooling centers, to reduce expected death rates. He said North America is less likely to have such a strong trend.
Another factor, the old age of Europe, said its inhabitants are more vulnerable.
