It has just been revealed that the northern hemisphere’s summer of 2023 was the hottest in 2,000 years, and that the summer of 2024 should not be too far behind. It makes us anxiously remember Heat waves that last year took place all over the world, one after another. First in the northern part of the planet, and then in the south. We know that there were many of them and that some directly or indirectly caused deaths, but there are not many estimates on this matter. However, now a group of scientists from Monash University analyzed excess mortality associated with heat waves around the world during the last 30 years, came to horrifying conclusions.
According to his calculations, between 1990 and 2019 could die across the planet due to heat waves 153,000 people. The figure is frightening, especially considering that the years after 2019 were particularly hot, so the figure will be significantly higher.
On the other hand, these scientists have proven that mortality due to heat waves it’s not uniform World. There are places and factors that seem to increase the susceptibility to this terrible effect of high temperatures, so it would be interesting to tighten measures, especially where they are most interesting. Ideally, take action on the issue changing of the climate to prevent the heat waves, but since they are here, the only thing left is not to lose their lives to them.
Heat wave deaths around the world
To conduct the study, the authors collected data on daily mortality and air temperature. 750 locations in 43 countries and regions. This way they could check where excess mortality occurred, which could be directly related to the heat.
On average, there has been an increase in heatwaves each year due to 236 deaths per 10 million inhabitants. But there were factors that increased this figure even further. To begin with, almost half of the deaths occurred in Asia. There were also large numbers of them in southern and eastern Europe. On the other hand, although it may seem paradoxical, there have also been many deaths from heat waves in polar and alpine regions. This may be due to the fact that its residents are not prepared for extreme heat. And what’s also interesting is that for these reasons, high-income countries had higher rates of excess mortality. In other cases, death occurred primarily from various causes.
So what now?
According to the study’s authors, this is just the beginning. Global temperatures increased between 1990 and 2019 1.14°C relative to 1850-1990 This is already a lot, but the growth will be more and more, and an increase is expected up to 3.41 ºC for 2081-2100
It is important to take action to reduce this increase in temperature, as well as to prevent deaths from heat waves. It is known that they can directly lead to death, but they can also worsen pre-existing health conditions. For this reason, it is also necessary to identify who the most vulnerable people are in order to take even more special measures towards them. If not, then the figure excess mortality The situation may continue to deteriorate, becoming even more dire.
Source: Hiper Textual
