1500 deaths in the recent European heatwave were due to climate change

An intense heat wave in June and July killed 2,300 people across London and 11 other European cities, a death toll that was almost tripled by climate change. Although he can take months to determine the impact of climate change on heat deaths, scientists have now developed a method to do it quickly.

A high atmospheric “heat” dome “brought extreme heat to Western and central Europe at the end of June, with temperatures reaching almost 35 ° C in London, 40 ° C in Paris and 46 ° C in certain parts of Spain and Portugal. Forest fires were flamboyant through the Mediterranean, nuclear reactors were closed in Switzerland and France, and the Italian regions prohibited the outdoor workforce during the hottest games of the next day after the death of a construction worker.

Researchers from the global meteorological allocation network have used weather data to estimate how intense the heat wave would have been without climate change, then compared it to what really happened. They combined their rapid attribution results with research by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine team which represented the relationship between daily temperature and excessive deaths in European cities. The researchers applied this curve to actual temperatures and those calculated for a non -storage world to find the number of deaths of climate change during this heat wave.

They estimated that 2,300 people died of heat between June 23 and July 2 in Athens, Barcelona, ​​Budapest, Frankfurt, London, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Rome, Sassari, Italy and Zagreb, Croatia. The analysis has shown that the heat wave would have killed 700 people even in a cooler world. But because climate change has amplified temperatures up to 4 ° C, 1,500 additional people died. Heat is the most deadly type of extreme time, but it is a silent killer who aggravates existing diseases and is often not recorded on death certificates.

This is the first study to calculate deaths related to the climate immediately after a heat wave. In London, climate change was responsible for 171 of the 263 deaths. “That, for me, made [climate change] More real, ”explains the member of the Friederike Otto team at the Imperial College in London.” We need political decision -makers to act. »»

“Now, it’s closer to the dangerous heat for more people,” said Ben Clarke, a team member, also at the Imperial College in London. Eighty-eight percent of people killed were 65 years old or over, the most vulnerable group.

Research can underestimate deaths because it is based on the mortality data of a fresher past, according to Kristie Ebi at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“We don’t know what’s going on when you get to these really extreme temperatures,” she said.

While governments now give more thermal wave employees, response plans and infrastructure still owes an improvement. Milan, the hardest city with 499 deaths, suffers from high air pollution, which can be aggravated by heat. Madrid, where 90% of deaths were due to climate change, lack of greenery to temper the effect of the island of urban heat.

And in London, many buildings are poorly ventilated. For the moment, the city could offer drinking water at the London underground stations and prohibit non -essential car trips during heat waves, explains Otto. Teachers and civil servants should also inform people of the heat risk. “Even if you think you are invincible, you are not,” she says.