Combining climate and mortality data, researchers have estimated that 315 deaths in Greater London and 735 deaths in Central Paris can be strongly linked to the 2003 heatwave that set record-breaking temperatures across Europe. Taking their analysis a step further, they determine that 64 (± 3) deaths from the London dataset and 506 (± 51) deaths from the Paris dataset are attributable to anthropogenic climate change, which increased the risk of heat related mortality by 20% and 70%, respectively, in the two cities. The team, led by scientists from the University of Oxford and Public Health England, has reported its latest findings in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Quantifying the impact of changes in climate on mortality will allow agencies to make more accurate emergency plans for extreme weather events and build a stronger case for longer term action, but there are hurdles to overcome.
“Deaths are usually recorded as being due to a specific cause such as cardiovascular disease or cancer, which makes it difficult to make a direct connection between deaths recorded during a heatwave and exposure to heat specifically,” explained Clare Heaviside of Public Health England’s Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards. “So in order to calculate the number of deaths which can be attributed to the heatwave, we use a statistical relationship which relates increases in temperature above a certain threshold, to an increase in the number of deaths typically expected on a particular day of the year.”
The temperature-mortality relationship depends on many factors. To improve the quality of the analysis, data is calculated separately for each region or city. The next step is to establish the coefficient relating high temperature and increased mortality and apply this expression to a period of hot weather (in this case the summer of 2003) to estimate how many deaths during this timescale can be attributed to heat.
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