Human-made global warming ‘caused two in three heat deaths in Europe this summer’ | Extreme heat

The global heating made by humans caused two out of three warmth deaths in Europe during the burning summer of this year, discovered an early analysis of mortality in 854 large cities.

Epidemiologists and climatologists awarded 16,500 out of 24,400 thermal deaths from June to August to additional hot time caused by greenhouse gases.

The rapid analysis, which is based on established methods but has not yet been submitted for peer exam, noted that the climate rupture has made cities by 2.2 ° C on average, considerably increasing the number of deaths in dangerously hot time.

“The causal chain of fossil fuel combustion to the increase in heat and increased mortality is undeniable,” said Friederike Otto, climatologist at Imperial College in London and co-author of the report. “If we have not continued to burn fossil fuels in recent decades, most of the 24,400 people in Europe would not have died this summer.”

Scientists have used local relationships between temperature and death to model excessive mortality during the hottest months of the year, and compared their results – which cover cities where the life of the European population of the European population – with a hypothetical world without any climate change.

They found that the additional heat was responsible for around 68% of the estimated deaths. The elderly were the hardest affected by punishing temperatures, revealed that the study revealed that 85% of the dead over 65 and 41% on the age of 85.

“The vast majority of heat deaths occur in houses and hospitals, where people with existing health problems are pushed to their limits,” said Garyfallos Konstantinouis, epidemiologist at Imperial College in London and co-author of the study. “But the heat is rarely mentioned on death certificates.”

A handful of victims who died outside were appointed by local newspapers. Manuel Ariza Serrano, a former 77-year-old advisor at La Rambla, Spain, died after collapsing during a walk in August, according to the municipal council and former colleagues from the Cordoba region, who had summits of 45 ° C this weekend.

Brahim Ait El Hajjam, a father of four 47-year-olds who headed a soil covering company in northern Italy, died while depositing the concrete of a school building near Bologna, where temperatures reached 38 ° C that day. He died two days before a regional order to stop the outdoor construction work in the early afternoon had to take effect.

“He called my mother to tell him that he would have returned home to prepare lunch,” said his 19 -year -old son, Salah, to the Italian television channel Antentena 3 after his death. “That he would be at home at noon.”

Konstantinoudis said that the risk of public health health was still underestimated, despite the dangers.

“No one would expect someone to risk that their life is working in torrential rains or hurricane winds,” he said. “But the dangerous heat is always treated too nonchalantly.”

European cities are better prepared to cope with extreme heat than in 2003, when a devastating heat wave killed 70,000 people, but emergency services have trouble keeping the increase in temperatures and an aging population.

Doctors have called for local action plans when heat waves strike, more green space in cities – which are warmer than their rural environment – and air conditioning for vulnerable groups, such as residents of retirement homes.

Madeleine Thomson, an adaptation expert from Wellcoma, a non -profit health group, which was not involved in the study, said that new data showed that “no city in Europe is safe from the dead” of extreme heat.

“If we don’t act now, the toll will increase,” she said. “We must urgently eliminate fossil fuels and implement policies that protect the most risk from increasingly fatal heat waves.”