More than 100,000 Europeans died in heat waves 2022 and 2023 - Climate warming faster than expected according to scientists
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A report released by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) reveals that over 47,000 people lost their lives across Europe in 2023 due to extreme heat. Southern European countries experienced the most deadly temperatures.
The report was released last Monday and it identifies 2023 as the hottest year on record. Scientists are now trying to figure out if it was a temporary, natural peak or if it is part of an actual trend. If the latter is the case, we may be in more trouble than previously anticipated.
2022 was actually an even deadlier year, according to the report: more than 60,000 Europeans died from heat related problems that summer.
The death rate in 2022, according to the report by the Spanish research centre, would have been 80% higher without measures introduced in the past 20 years to help people adapt to rising temperatures, such as early warning systems and healthcare improvements.
"Our results show how there have been societal adaptation processes to high temperatures during the present century, which have dramatically reduced the heat-related vulnerability and mortality burden of recent summers, especially among the elderly," said Elisa Gallo, researcher at ISGlobal and lead author of the study.
French newspaper Le Monde wrote on August 12 that In 2023, an estimated 47,690 people died from heat in Europe between June and September, according to another study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.
Europe the fastest warming continent - WHO estimates 175,000 deaths per year in Europe
According to EuroNews.com, The World Health Organization (WHO) is estimating an even higher number of yeraly deaths in Europe stemming from heat related health problems: Extreme heat is already killing more than 175,000 people a year in Europe, according to the article.
The website for United Nations Turkey supports these numbers in an article on August 5:
"Across Europe, more than 50 countries “are paying the ultimate price”, said WHO Regional Director Dr. Hans Kluge, only days since Earth recorded its warmest average temperature yet, at 17.16 degrees Celsius (62.89 Fahrenheit.
Between 2000 and 2019, there were approximately 489,000 heat-related deaths annually worldwide, with many people paying the "ultimate price" for climate inaction.
Europe, the fastest-warming continent, accounts for a significant portion of these global deaths.
Over the past two decades, there has been a 30 per cent increase in heat-related deaths worldwide, according to CBC.ca.
WHO said temperatures in WHO's European Region are rising at twice the global average and the region accounted for 36 per cent of the global death rate. On average, that's more than 175,000 deaths annually, according to Hans Kluge, WHO's Europe director.
"We should have better answers by now"
"The leap in temperatures over the past 13 months has exceeded the global heating forecasts – is this just a blip or a systemic shift?" asks The Guardian in a July 2024 article, which argues that the climate may possibly be changing faster than scientific models have predicted.
“The 2023 temperature anomaly has come out of the blue, revealing an unprecedented knowledge gap perhaps for the first time since about 40 years ago, when satellite data began offering modellers an unparalleled, real-time view of Earth’s climate system,” wrote Gavin Schmidt, a British scientist and the director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
If this anomaly does not stabilize by August, he said, it could imply “that a warming planet is already fundamentally altering how the climate system operates, much sooner than scientists had anticipated”.
The recent spike in global temperatures, exceeding expert forecasts over the past 13 months, has caused concern within the science and environment community. While some feared it signaled a systemic shift, NASA climate expert Gavin Schmidt now suggests the trend may be closer to expectations, though it’s still too early to determine if the rise was a temporary anomaly or something more significant.
Reflecting on the extreme heat experienced in the latter half of 2023 and early 2024, when previous records were sometimes surpassed by more than 0.2°C—an unusually large anomaly—Schmidt admitted that scientists remain perplexed by the phenomenon:
“We should have better answers by now. Climate modelling as an enterprise is not set out to be super reactive. It is a slow, long process in which people around the world are volunteering their time. We haven’t got our act together on this question yet.”
Death Valley heat record from 2018 broken this year
Death Valley, known as the hottest place on Earth, experienced its hottest month on record this past July, according to the US National Park Service (NPS). In a statement released on August 2, the NPS reported that the park's average 24-hour temperature reached 108.5°F (42.5°C), surpassing the previous record of 108.1°F (42.3°C) set in 2018.
“We just experienced the hottest month in history in the hottest place on Earth! Six of the 10 hottest summers have come in the past 10 years, which should serve as a wake-up call,” park superintendent Mike Reynolds said in the statement.
A heat crisis on the rise in India
As global temperatures climb, India is facing increasingly intense heat waves. By April, several Indian cities, including the capital New Delhi, had already recorded temperatures exceeding 46,1 Celsius / 115 Fahrenheit, setting new records, Phys.org wrote on August 1, 2024.
Large parts of India's population does not have air conditioning, and is therefore more vulnerable than countries in Europe or the United States, according to Teevrat Garg, associate professor of economics at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy.
The access to air conditioning in India is challenged by high costs and the unreliability of the electricity grid, according to the article on Phys.org.
The antarctic region 10 C hotter than normal
Antarctica experienced a significant heatwave in July, with ground temperatures across large areas of the ice sheets rising an average of 10°C above normal. On some days, temperatures reached up to 28°C above expectations, marking one of the most extreme midwinter heat events on record for the continent, according to a recent article in The Guardian.
Illustration Credit:
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Flickr Image